Mein Käse
by hyperwriter
Summary: What do you get when you mix Kurt, glitter, a stalker, and several people who supposedly live in reality? Lots of confusion, stuff that makes absolutely no sense, and a little bit of love ;) (complete)
1. Introductions and language fixations

First day of junior year. I finally decided to take my little language fix to the next level. Somewhere between buying France and creating my own language. So I finally decided on somebody from another country to help and to be helped with my addiction in return. Maybe this would quench my thirst to know every word ever spoken and to be able to compare it to every other word.

As soon as I got to school that day, I marched determinedly up to the secretary's desk and asked. "Can I help one of the foreign exchange students?" nearly the same time as a boy standing next to me asked, in a thick German accent, "Can I find someone to help me to my classes?" We looked at each other and laughed, then at the lady, who nodded. C'mon I'll help you find your locker." I told him. He was rather good looking; dark hair, fair skin, and almond shaped brown puppy eyes. He was about my height, too, so rather short.

"Yeah, Its locker A030. Danke. Oops sorry, slipping back to German. Danke means…"

"Ooh, it means thank you." I said, and then blushed at my outburst. "Sorry, I get a little, um, eager around languages. Freakishly so if you ask my friends."

"That's cool. I can teach you some German if you want." I smiled as he continued. "What other languages are you interested in?"

"Ooh, you'll be sorry you asked that," I said with a slightly wicked grin. "Lets see, French, Spanish, German, Latin, Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Ukraine, Italian, sign language, Braille, Greek, Hindi, Kanaden, and basically any other language on the face of the earth that I can get my hands on." He laughed again. "We'll, I can help you learn. I used to work for a circus and we occasionally visited other countries on our tours."

"That is so cool! I don't even think I've been to Canada. Oh, I don't even think I've told you my name. Its Beth."

"I'm Kurt, Kurt Wagner." We both seemed to realize at the same time that we'd stopped walking. "C'mon ill show you where your locker is. Ya know, I just realized its right next to mine. I hardly ever used my locker last year." I made a swipe for his hand to pull him along, but he pulled back. "Sorry" he said blushing "I'm not much one for physical contact."

"Know whacha mean. I usually never let guys get within 5 feet of me, but sometimes I forget when I'm having fun." We smiled at each other again. After I showed him the finer points of using an American made lock, which was 50% luck and 50% getting the dial exactly on the number, we realized that class would start in less than 3 minutes. We practically flew down the halls. "Where's your next class?" "S-003." "Hey, that's mine too."

We made it to our class just in time to find adjoining seats by my friends Jenn and Andy. All the classes Kurt and I had before lunch were the same. During lunch everyone sat outside to enjoy the fading summer and to ask Kurt what he liked best about America. After a few minutes of casual discussion of ho-hos and other hostess products, I noticed an ominous figure walking towards our table. I quickly pointed him out to everyone else. "Crud you guys! Do you see who that is?"

"Oh no! Its stalker Dan!"

"Was es stalker?"

"Its someone who follows you around and who wont take no for an answer." I tried to explain. "Kurt, pretend like we're a couple. That should scare him off. Drape your arm over my shoulder. " He gave me a quick hesitating look, but must have seen the pleading in my eyes because he did so." Stalker Dan walked over and eyed me suspiciously. "Hi, this is Kurt. He's new here from Germany," Kurt tilted his head slightly in a small nod and said "guten tag." Dan was continuing to eye us. He seemed to shake himself out of it for a second when he said; "Can I sit with you guys." *Somehow* there was no room. Andy was sitting with Good Dan, Liz with Jenn, and Staci had her backpack next to her. Of course I was next to Kurt. Dan threw one more suspicious look at me and walked away. The rest of us dissolved into laughter, even Kurt, who probably didn't have the slightest idea what was going on. I quickly explained that stalker Dan was, well, a stalker who could not figure out that I didn't reciprocate his feelings of deepest love. All too soon the bell rung and Kurt and I rushed off to our afternoon schedules, which also happened to be identical.

After school let out I took Kurt out to where the busses were. "I have no idea what bus I'm supposed to take or even how to get home once I do figure out what stop I'm supposed to get off at."

"You can follow me home, and then I can show you around all the cool places here. There's like two of them now." We stopped at my house and I shouted to my mom that I was going out to lunch with a friend and wouldn't be home till later. "One problem, Beth. I've never ridden a bike in my life. I don't even own one."

"You can have one of ours, no one will miss it. And I'm sure you'll be able to pick it up fast. Its not too hard, granted you can balance." I didn't even have to teach him anything, he was so good. I don't think he wobbled once. "Hey, this is easy!"

We decided to stop at burger king, one of the few places to eat in Warrenville. Kurt ordered what seemed to be half the menu. "American food is so delicious." We sat by a window, where Kurt pointed out where he lived. It was an apartment complex across the street. "My rooms on the upper right. It's a place for kids to live so they can go to school here and still live without their families. It's like a boarding house." "Hey, Kurt what time is it? We could see if we could catch a movie. I think there's a good one playing at 4."

I reached over and tilted his watch so I could see the face, bumping a couple of buttons in the process. "No, Don't!" Kurt flickered and I caught a glimpse of something blue and furry with very pointy ears and yellow eyes before it vanished in a puff of sulfuric smoke. Kurt was gone too. I couldn't see him anywhere, but he couldn't have just disappeared. 

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First chapter done! Hehehehe, it gets MUCH more interesting, especially when some new discoveries are made. I can put up the next one whenever I please, so be nice! J 


	2. reality and memories set in

Finally I went outside and got our bikes and walked them across the street to the building Kurt had mentioned earlier. I had to ring the doorbell a couple of times before anyone answered. It was a gruff looking man who looked as though he should be a lumberjack. "Yeah?" Was all he said by was of a greeting. "Is Kurt here? Kurt Wagner?" The man seemed to sniff the air before hesitantly replying "Yeah. Why?" At this point a tall teenage boy came over and stood behind the man. He was wearing sunglasses. Sunglasses indoors? I didn't have time to ponder before he said, "Let her in, its ok." Then he addressed me. "I think Kurt is in his room. Follow me." He led me to Kurt's room and knocked. "Go away." "Kurt, Its me can I come in." "Ja, I guess" Kurt was sitting on his bed, but he seemed not to want to look at me. "Kurt, where'd you go? You disappeared so fast, one second you were there, the next gone." Kurt didn't say anything, but looked as if he was about to cry. "Kurt, you can tell me, I'm your friend." 

He looked straight into my eyes. There was a small beep and suddenly his eyes went from brown to yellow. His skin had turned blue and it looked slightly furry. His ears and teeth were pointed, and his feet looked strange. He only had three fingers and…he had a tail. He seemed to be waiting for me to scream or hit him or something. I looked back into his eyes and saw what I'd only see the smallest traces of before. Fear, loneliness, and pain looked back out through Kurt's eyes. I smiled and said "So?" Kurt's eyes were once again happy and carefree. He seemed happier than id ever seen him. "You mean it? You really don't care?" "Nope. Actually, um, can I feel your fur?" He laughed. It was as soft as a kitten's. 

"You promise you won't tell anyone?" "Of course not." "Then I'll tell you my other secret." He grabbed my wrist with his 3 furry blue fingers and there was a small poof. We were surrounded by the same sulfuric smoke as in Burger King and then suddenly we were on the roof. "Lemme put this back on, lest someone sees." A beep and he was Kurt as I had first seen him that morning. "Hey, I have a better idea then the roof." Another poof and we were on the water tower by the grocery store. The sun was just setting. We watched it for a few minutes. "Look Kurt, it's beautiful. You know, you've been so honest, well, can you take us back and then well go to my house." 

We stopped right outside my bedroom window. "Can you take us inside?" "Sure, but I have to look inside first. I have to know where I'm going." He looked in the window and then with a poof we were in. "Wait here. You can read a book while I find what I need." I dug around for my German dictionary. "Ok, for my first trick…" I set the dictionary down on my desk and then sat down on the bed next to Kurt. "I've never really done something this heavy or this far away. Its usually just pencils on a desk." I concentrated really hard on the dictionary and it started very slowly to lift of the desk and drift through the air towards us. It started shaking halfway though and Kurt had to grab it before it fell. He handed it to me with a smile. 

"That's not my main gift though. Here's what I usually do. Go ahead and read your book. This'll take a couple of minutes." I started skimming the book, seeming to simply flip pages, but I was actually reading it all. Kurt kept glancing over to see what I was doing. After about 5 minutes I flipped the last page and pronounced "Done!" In German. "Ask me word in German." 

Kurt quizzed me for a few minutes before he fully realized that I had read an entire dictionary in under 5 minutes and remembered every word. "So do you now fully understand German? How'd you do that?" "Basically, I remember exactly every word. I wouldn't understand German grammar or conjugation unless I read a textbook. I think the library has some. I think what my power is that I can remember everything I ever see. Or at least that's what it seems like. You see, I can remember every moment I ever lived. You give me a time and day, I can tell you what I was doing. 

For example…" I retold a brief part of conversation we had had that morning. "That's cool! So I pick a day, you tell me what happened?" Yup. And, well, I can do one more thing too. Do you mind if I show you?" "Of course not." I put my fingers to his temple, seeing skin but feeling his fur. I could feel my eyes glazing over and saw only white. I concentrated hard and soon scenes were flashing before my eyes and Kurt's too. First there was a farmer and his wife finding a baby in a field of wheat. They recoiled at the site of its blue fur and pointed ears. Next was them begging a circus ringmaster to take "The Thing" of their hands. Then was a very young Kurt pulling back a hood on his cloak to gasps from the crowd as he stood next to a sign reading "Demon Child." Then, later he was running through a forest being pursued by the same crowd carrying pitchforks and torches. Next, he was eleven and sneaking into the circus tent during the middle of the night to practice tight rope walking. He didn't look like he needed much practice. He was running back and forth on all fours. Suddenly a shrill voice rang out "Kurt!" He jumped about a foot off the wire and fell. There was no net below. He disappeared with a bamf and reappeared behind the stands. He seemed shocked and I could hear him whisper, or maybe it was even a thought he'd had at the time "What am I?" 

I pulled my hands away and my eyes returned to normal. "Oh, Kurt, I'm sorry" and with that I threw my arms around him in a hug. He seemed dazed by what I had shown him. "What was that?" he asked finally. "I've never really tried it before. I've never had anyone to practice on. I tried my cat, but it just seemed to be what he was seeing. I tried it on myself, but I couldn't tell how much was the mutant power and how much it was my perfect memory. I didn't know it would do that, but I think that was your memories. I think that's what I can do. Read peoples memories." 

He looked at me for a moment, still obviously shaken by his own memories. I imagine that he'd worked all his life to forget them. He gave me a hug and said, "That's awesome. We can stick together now, ya know protect each other. And we can practice too. This'll be fun." 

"Ja, hey do you want me to show you around some more?" "Yeah, that'd be fun." He transported us back outside and we got on our bikes. I took him to the town's waterfall. It was about 6 feet tall, but it was wide and really pretty from the right angle. We started to talk about school. 

I hated going back, because summer was freedom for me, but for Kurt, school was exciting. "I've never been to school before, because I didn't always have my watch. Well, I did go one, but it was a disaster. My adoptive mom in the circus made me go. It was before I had my image inducer. 

Why don't you use your power to see?" I gave him a look that said "Are you sure?" and he nodded. I put my fingers to his head and felt my eyes roll back. Soon the pictures started. There was the same woman as before. Kurt looked about 7 or 8. "It was 3rd grade." I nearly jumped out of my skin. My eyes snapped back. "What?" he asked. "I just didn't know that you could talk to me while I was reading your memories." "I was only thinking it." "Sorry. Lemme try again." The woman was telling Kurt that she wanted him out of her hair. "We've found a school that will take you. You have to go now." "But they'll see me like this. They'll hurt me. And I don't know much French." "We were in France at the time with the circus." 

She grabbed him by the arm and dragged him off. She put a long trenchcoat on him with an oversized hood. "There, now no one can see you." She then pushed him out the front door where a man took him and shoved him into a car. He was driven to the school and pushed out onto the curb in front of it. He looked at a piece of paper in his hand that must have told him where to go because he took off without looking at anybody. He sat quickly in his seat when he found his class. The teacher began taking role call, looking at each student when they responded. 

Kurt gave a very timid answer to the sound of his name and the look she gave him was particularly penetrating. "Mr. Wagner, if you are going to be in my classroom, you must remove your coat." "But, I need it." Kurt was starting to act panicky. "No coat. Now, or the principle's office." Kurt seemed to give one more glance around him before letting the coat fall to the floor. 

The teacher fell over from shock, as did many of the students. "What is that thing." Yelled one of the boys. Kurt sat down and put his head on the desk, trying to keep the comments from hurting him. Soon, some of the students had recovered, and were screaming out insults at him. "Freak." "Animal." "Devil" Were among what I caught. A girl shrieked. "Look it's got a tail." A twitter of laughter went around the room. It seemed to be too much for poor Kurt. 

He ran from the room, tears streaming from his eyes. "It's not over yet." Present day Kurt had spoken that time. Young Kurt had arrived home and was telling his adopted mother what had happened. "I don't have to go back, mother, right?" He said with a sniff. "I'm sorry Kurt, but you have to. I'm supposed to help put up the new tent and I can't be always watching you. I'm sure no one will do anything about it." 

I heard a faint "Yeah right." But I couldn't tell if it was from the memory or not. Kurt was dropped off outside the school and he tried to make a break for the door without being noticed. But a couple of boys from his class were waiting for him. He tried to run, but they grabbed him by his tail and dragged him into an alleyway. They started punching and kicking him and Kurt didn't even have a chance to get up. The boys were distracted by shouts from someone and he took it as his opportunity to leave. He ran for the school and made it inside the building before they realized he was gone. 

He was gasping for breath and clutching his chest in pain. He tried to walk again, but nearly collapsed. He limped a little ways to the boy's bathroom and hid in one of the stalls until the bell rang. Then he limped the 3 miles back to the circus. The sky in the memory was dark by the time he reached home. 

As he approaced the circus, he noticed a large crowed gathered outside, demanding "the beast". He quickly hid up a tree but they must have heard him because one of them shouted, "There it is dad." It was one of the boys from school. Kurt jumped from tree to tree and managed to get ahead of them before falling when a branch broke. He continued on foot, which was one of the memories of his I had seen before. 

They had reached some apartment buildings and Kurt jumped in the shadows and seemed to disappear. While the crowd seemed to wonder what had happened to their prey, Kurt had snuck off and hid in a drainage pipe. 

I pulled my hands away. "Kurt" I threw my arms around him again. "I won't let that happen to you again." I felt something wet fall into my hair and roll down the side of my face. Kurt was crying. So was I. Once we had both calmed down, I asked Kurt how he had disappeared if he hadn't gotten his powers yet. 

"You might soon find that out. I tend to disappear in the shadows. Then I just kept in the shadows until I reached the drainpipe and hid there until I heard Mother coming to look for me. She didn't find me for 2 days. I had 3 broken ribs, a broken ankle and a whole lot of bruises." I gently touched his arm and got a brief image of young Kurt with his face black and blue. We then noticed that it was nearly sunset. Kurt did seem to be blending into the shadows a bit. "If I didn't have my watch on, you'd hardly be able to see me." 

As we rode home Kurt seemed to disappear more and more. Then, when we were crossing a street, a driver ran a stop sign and didn't even seem to notice Kurt or me. Kurt didn't seem to notice the car and continued, lost in thought. "Kurt!" I screamed, and road my bike towards him as fast as I could go. He seemed to come out of his thoughts and I reach out my hand towards him, trying to push him faster. 

It was a split second before the car would hit. The driver just seemed to have seen us and slammed on his breaks. Kurt grabbed my outstretched hand and then we were gone, leaving behind a very confused driver. We ended up right outside my window again. We were both panting hard. 

"Kurt, you saved me. I threw my arms around his neck and quickly gave him a small peck on the cheek. I waved goodbye before running in the house. He seemed to stand there a second before getting on his bike and riding away.


	3. meet the mutants

The next day I had to wake up early for school. I rushed to the bus stop to find Kurt there waiting. "I still don't know where my bus stop is. And everyone else I know drives or gets a ride. Plus it's more fun this way." We smiled at each other and then started up a conversation in German, with Kurt correcting my German as we went. Finally the bus came and we sat together in the front. 

Another uneventful school day went by, with Kurt helping to scare away the stalker at lunch. When Dan seemed to want to linger, we just spoke German again. Dan was under some sort of idea that I was only allowed to speak German to him, so he ran away again. Nobody quite understood how I had managed to learn German, but the ddn't really ask questions.

After school, Kurt and I took his proper bus home, so I could show him which stop was his. Not that I really wanted him to stop coming to mine, but I felt bad that Kurt had to walk all the way. I mean, I could always walk to his. "You wanna come over to my place, there's some friends I want you to meet." "Sure." When we got there, Kurt called "I'm home" and turned off his watch. 

He was back to his blue self. "Do they know?" I whispered. "Yeah, see they're kinda, um, special too. You'll see" At that point, a man in a wheelchair rolled up. "This is the professor. Prof., this is her." 

The man smiled and said hello, then called for some other people to come down. First was the guy with sunglasses I'd seen earlier, followed by a girl with long red hair. Next, a small girl glided down a nearby staircase, then a girl in gothic clothing with white streaks in her hair. Finally a dark boy with blonde hair. 

And they were all staring at me. I instinctively took a step closer to Kurt. I don't really like lots of people watching me, especially strangers. "What's going on?" I whispered, feeling quite scared. The man in the wheelchair spoke. "We're all mutants, don't worry. We want to tell you about ourselves, see if you want to be one of us. Let us show you. Scott." The guy in the sunglasses touched a button on his visor and a laser shot out and exploded a vase. "Jean." The red haired girl touched her own temples and closed her eyes. All the pieces on the floor floated up in the air and then fell into a wastepaper basket. "Kitty." The smallest girl walked straight through a wall and then came back out. "Evan" The blonde boy shot a 2 foot spike out of his palm. It hit the opposing wall. "Rouge can't really demonstrate her powers." 

There was a slight pause. "I'm- I'm a mutant too." "Yes, I know. See, I can read minds. When you were here looking for Kurt the other day, I sensed another mutant in the house. I used my mutant finding machine, cerebro, to further find out who you were. I told Kurt to bring you here. Would you mind showing us your power?" 

"Um, yeah. You got a book I could use? Preferably one with German grammar." "It's over on the bookshelf. Jean, you wanna…" "No let me." I levitated it over and it hardly shook at all that time. Then I started reading the book. It wasn't very thick. It took me about half a minute. Then I turned to Kurt and started talking to him in German. From the way he looked, I could tell it was pretty much dead on. "I couldn't have done that yesterday. When I was showing Kurt my power I used them to read my German dictionary. And now, well, I seem to know German. I don't know how to show it, but I can also remember everything, every part of my life." 

"Trust me, she does." Kurt piped in. "And I can also read other peoples memories. Want me to show you." Scott stepped forward and offered to give a memory. "Focus on one specifically, one that everyone would know."

I put my hands to his temple. The room in the memory had sort of a reddish quality. There was a group of mutants, some I must not have met yet. The professor was stand at the front talking. "Bayville has found out our secret. My informants have told me that soon they'll be coming to try to get us. To avoid public confrontation, we must leave, and soon. We'll be moving in 2 days so you all should start packing now. We'll be moving to somewhere in Illinois called Warrenville." 

I pulled my hands away and looked around. "Scott, do you always see in red?" 

"Yeah. That alone should prove it." 

"Well if you need more, you moved from Bayville, and you had 2 days before you moved." 

"Yep, that proves it." Said Kurt. "Though I already knew it was true." He smiled at me. "Yes, she is indeed a mutant. Now, you are invited to stay here for training to better use your powers. You should go ask your parents and see what they think about it." Said the professor. "OK, Kurt, you wanna come with me?" He nodded and with a bamf we were back in my room. "You should probably wait here." He nodded. My parents were sitting in the living room. "Uh, mom, dad, I gotta tell you something. I'm a mutant, see watch." I levitated a book on the table. 

They just stared. Then my mom stood up. "Out you little freak. Get out of my house. You'd better be gone in an hour." I turned and ran downstairs. "K-Kurt, they'ved kicked me out." 

"Oh, Don't worry, Its ok. The professor did say you could stay with us. It'l be more fun this way." He hugged me as I nodded. "You wanna help me move my stuff?" "Of course." We ran up to the attic and grabbed some empty boxes, plus my birth certificate and a few pictures of my siblings. "I've cleaned this whole attic. Hey, I got an idea, wanna help me?" We pushed all the organized boxes into the stairwell, clogging it so no one could get in, then dumped out the rest." 

We then returned to my room. I packed my clothes in one box and books and other trinkets in another. I put school stuff in my backpack. Then Kurt and I linked arms, grabbed a box each and we were gone with a bamf. We instantly reappeared in a large, nice looking room. Jean was in there doing her homework at the desk. 

"The Prof. said you should bunk with Jean." Kurt told me. Jean pointed to the furniture on the other side of the room. "You can put your stuff there. If you need any help, just ask." 

Kurt helped me unpack, joking around as we did so. "Wait till you see the danger room. If we scare you now, then you'll be running for the door by then." "How could anything that involves something blue and fluffy scare me? What exactly is this "Danger room" anyway? It sounds…dangerous. Ach! Don't hit me with a pillow I was only joking. Here, I can leech some memories off you to find out." 

I put my hands to his forehead and got some images of lasers, spinning blades, and other such deadly weaponry. "That's supposed to help us train? More likely kill us. Besides, I'm not sure how my powers would be able to defend me from lasers." Scott poked his head in the door. "Hey, Nightcrawler, your turn to help with dinner. C'mon." "Who's Nightcrawler? You? You look more like a 'Fluffball' to me." 

He hit me with a pillow again. "Do I get a cool nickname too? How 'bout Memory? Corny, I know, but sums it up pretty well." Having finished packing already, I followed Kurt down to help him cook. 

That night it took me ages to get to sleep. Too many memories, and with me they're not exactly easy to forget. When I finally did fall asleep, I dreamed of my parents that afternoon, in a sort of a loop. The memory kept restarting itself. 

After the third time, I heard a small surprised scream. I shot awake, the memories ending. "Wassamatter?" I asked groggily.


	4. a near death experience

(A/n) Ok, its gonna start to get really weird, especially when I try to explain things. Its not gonna make much sense, but just pretend it does. Confusion is all part of the fun! ;) Thanks to everyone who reviewed! (dies of happiness from actually getting reviews from people I don't know)

After the third time, I heard a small surprised scream. I shot awake, the memories ending. "Wassamatter?" I asked groggily. 

Some of the students, the ones id met earlier had come running and were now standing in the doorway. Jean was further in the room, about halfway to her bed. "What happened?" I asked again, this time awake. Jean answered. Apparently it was she who had screamed. "I came in to go to sleep, and there were pictures on the ceiling. They were coming from your eyes. Like a projection." "I was just remembering and it continued into my dreams. What was it?" There was a man and a woman and they looked scared." 

"Maybe…wait. I think I know whats going on. turn on the lights." I focused hard on a memory of me swinging my little brother and then opened my eyes and looked at the wall. There it was, projected from my eyes on the opposing wall. I opened my mouth, disbelivingly. I mean, its one thing to have a suspicion about something, its another for it to be true. As soon as my mouth opened, there was audio on the images. The swing creaking and my sister laughing. I blinked and it stopped. 

"I-I didn't even know I could do that." Kurt was by my side, his hand gently on my shoulder. The rest of the xmen had come in the room and shut the door. He spoke first. "Maybe now we should call you the human projector." That lightened the mood. "Well, now you guys can show me your old life." I grinned. Kurt voulenteered first. 

There was some images of a fat boy, a toadlike boy, a really fast boy, one shaking the ground, a girl throwing bombs she made in her hands and the briefest flicker of a blue woman before Kurt steered away from that as if he didn't want to think about it. I then projeted them onto the wall one at a time, putting memories of each one together and in a repeating sequence. "Whose that?" I asked repeatedly and the others had fun making fun of whoever was on the wall at the time. "That's stink boy, aka toad…" "Pietro is only fast when it comes to activities, mentally hes quite slow." 

Eventually I asked "These are like the bad guy mutants right?" Id figured, but wanted to make sure. Kurt was the one who answered. "Yep, well not exactly bad. More just um…" The others filled in the gap "Moronic?" "Stupid?" "Incompetent prats?" "Probably all of the above." I went around getting more memories from some of the others. They tried to remember the stupidest moments from the brotherhood that they could. Scott, Jean, Spyke, Kitty, finally Rouge. 

I moved over and reached out to touch my fingers to her forhead. "No, Don't!" A collective scream from the group. My eyes regained focus. "Why not?" I asked curiously. But no one aswered. They were all staring at me. "Whad I do?" "Youre touching her…and not even having a seizure." 

This caught my attention. "Say what now?" "Rouges power is that she drains the life force, memories, and abilities out of anyone she touches. But its not affecting you." Rouge's expression brightened, "Maybe it wore off. Maybe im not dangerous anymore." Kurt held out a finger and Rouge tapped it. 

There was a flash of light and both gave a muffled scream. "Nope. But at least someone can touch me. Maybe it was just a fluke." I held out my hands and she put hers to mine. But nothing happened. "This is, like, so weird. Maybe we should find the professor or something." Said Kitty. "Naw, lets wait until morning. Its kinda late." Rouge responded. "And maybe we should share a room. I mean, in the morning, Kitty and I race around frantically getting ready, and we've had a ton of close shaves. If not for Kittys phasing ablility…" Kitty, Jean, and I all nodded our heads in agreement. 

"Makes sense to do so." Commented Jean. "And its late, we all have to go to school tomorrow. We'll move the stuff tomorrow." That's how our first "Movie memory marathon" ended. But as much as I tried, I couldn't get back to sleep. Too much had happened. 

There was so much stuff I'd found out I could do, and I didn't even know if that was where it ended. It got me thinking… "Hey Rouge?" "Hzuh?" "I got an idea. We need someone else though. I'll go get Kurt." As I left, she was sitting up and rubbing her eyes, still trying to figure out what was going on. "Kurt. Hey, Kurt wake up." I gave him a couple of pokes. He gave a small jump and a squeak. "C'mon, me n' Rouge need you for something. I grabbed his hand and pulled him into our room. 

"Ok, now Rouge I'm gonna try to give you my power. Then maybe you can touch Kurt. Just concentrate on trying to get whatever I'm giving you." I sat on my bed and searched my mind and found it intwined with a bunch of other stuff in the back of my mind. I concentrated on pushing it over to Rouge. Suddenly, a blue zap of light went between our outstreached fingers. 

Rouge turned and held out a hand to touch Kurts finger. Nothing happened. She put her hand on his cheek. Nothing. Tears started to silently trickle down her face as she gave Kurt a huge hug. I tried to get up to join the hug, but I couldn't move. I couldn't even open my mouth. I realized I had fallen back and was lying on the bed. Rouge turned to me and started babling a hurried thanks, but trailed off when I didn't respond. "Beth…, um are you ok?" 

Kurt was at my side in a bamf "I don't think shes breathing and I cant find a pulse. It might just be my fingers. I hope its just my fingers…" Rouge was crying harder now. She screamed for someone to come help. Kurt scooped me up in his arms, grabbed Rouges hand and we teleported into the professors room. Rouge screamed again, but the professor was already in his wheelchair coming over along with Logan. 

Several of the other kids had appeared at the door. "What happened?" he demanded of Kurt. "She did something funny, made this zap of light go between her and Rouge." "Are you sure it wasn't just Rouges power?" "No, she was impervious to that. It had no effect on her." 

Scott spoke up from the door. "Yeah, Jean woke us up earlier when she was scared by her projecting memories and then we were all giving her examples of the brotherhood and she tried to get some from Rouge but nothing happened." "And-then-later-after-the-rest-went-to-to-bed-she-she-gave-summa-her-p-powers-and-I-could-t-touch-Kurt-but-n-now-shes-DEAD!" Rouge managed to get out before breaking into fresh sobs. 


	5. discoveries and annoyances

"And-then-later-after-the-rest-went-to-to-bed-she-she-gave-summa-her-p-powers-and-I-could-t-touch-Kurt-but-n-now-shes-DEAD!" Rouge managed to get out before breaking into fresh sobs. 

"No I'm not! But how do I make them realize im still in here?" I suddently remembered that the professor was a telepath and felt very stupid for not doing so from the start." He was taking my pulse again and getting worried. "Professor, I'm not dead, I just cant seem to move. Or breath. Or do much of anything. But I think that all we need to do is have Rouge give me that power back. I think it was tangled with some other abilites." Like being alive. 

"Rouge, shes not dead. She just contacted me telepathically. Just focus on giving her the power back." The all looked at him like he was crazy. Thank God no one had thought to shut my eyes yet. And that I didn't seem to need to blink. I'd noticed that recently, especially when I was sleeping. I'd wake up with my eyes already open. 

Rouge hesitantly walked over and picked up my hand. She seemed to be focusing on something. There was another zap of blue light and I blinked and took a breath. "See, I'm not dead." But before I could say anything else, something blue and furry was on me, giving me a hug. A split second later there was Rouge, apoligizing frantically between sobs and then half the others. We were just lucky no one touched Rouge. 

After a few minutes, the professor interruped with a loud. "Hmm" "What professor?" someone asked. "Well, I'm just pondering why and how this happened. You can block Rouges power, and it seems that you can transfer something that blocks it from inside her own body, making it useless. It seems to take all signs of life from you in the process. Hmmm." "Well, it felt like I was giving her like a ball of yarn, a ball of powers, all knotted together. Maybe it was knotted to too much and killed me or something." Memories. Most my powers were linked to memories. 

"What if I gave Rouge a memory that tricked her body into thinking she was before the age she got her mutant powers. It made it revert back to how she was before she had her powers. And it was tied too many neccesarry things and I really did die, but I was preserved as a memory inside myself. I mean, practically all my other mutant ablities are linked to memories." 

The professor seemed to nod. "That will have to do as an explination until we figure out whats going on. But I think you might be on the right track. One can never be sure. Well, you all should at least try to go to bed. You have school in a few hours." Everyone trudged back to bed, many shooting me fearful, furtive looks as if I might drop dead. Again. I was too busy thinking to really notice. 

As we reach our room, I decided to do another experiment. I grabbed Scott and Jean and nodded for Kurt to follow too. "K', Scott, just focus on receiving what im gonna try to give you." He refused, saying "Oh, no, were not going that again. What if its even worse this time?" "We'll Jean is a telepath, so I can talk to her. And it'l work just like last time. If anything does go wrong, you can just push it back. C'mon, doncha wanna see? In colors, I mean." He seemed to realize what would happen if it worked. "Fine, Jean, you watch her." We touched fingers and the blue zap moved between us. I heard Jean's voice in my head. "You Ok?" "Yeah, tell him to take off his glasses and open his eyes. Better have him point them at an open window. Just in case." 

Jean relayed the message and Scott slowly opened his eyes. They were blue. He blinked a couple of times, disbelievingly, looking around. "Its all in colors. I can see normally." Then he look at Jean. By this time he was trying not to cry and miserably failing. "My god, she's beautiful." He murmured under his breath, and then hugged her. After a few more minutes he gave me my power back, along with a hug. 

He and Jean left, talking. "We could try Kurt next." I said. "But it probably wouldn't work on his fur. That's your apperance, not a power." He looked slighty disappointed. "How long have you been able to teleport? Was that memory on the tightrope the first time?" "Yeah, that I know of. Maybe I could do it before, but I just didn't realize it, or something." 

I can search your memories, see if you remember anything from when you were little. I put my fingers to his head like usual, but this time instead of letting any memory come, I tried to find a specific one. It was like looking through boxes and boxes of pictures. The images would fly up for a brief second and then fade away as a new one came. As we went further back in time, the pictures grew fuzzier. I didn't know how I would be able to find what I was looking for, the memories were going by to fast for me to look clearly at any of them, but suddenly they stopped by themselves and the memory it stopped on flickered to life. 

There was a baby crying, falling, the sound of rushing water speeding towards it, and then a loud bamf and the baby was much further downstream. The memory was becoming too distorted to be able to identify anything any longer, so I pulled away. "I guess you've always been able to teleport, then. I wouldn't even be able to stop that. I mean, if the theory I told the professor was right." 

Rouge was looking confused, since she hadn't seen the memory. She cleared her throat in a would-somebody-like-to-fill-me-in sort of way. I looked at Kurt for permission and he gave a small nod, so I projected it onto the wall. It might have been my imagination, but they seemed to share a secret glance, as if there was more to the memory than I had seen. 

I looked at the clock and noticed it was three in the morning. "We should probably get some sleep. Besides, all this investigating and experimenting is making my head hurt." I could hardly keep my eyes open at that point. Kurt and Rouge both went into the hallway, talking in low voices that I couldn't hear. It didn't matter, I fell asleep in a matter of a minute anyway. 

But then the memories started up again. It started with Jean and Scott. Kurt was pulling down the hood of his trenchcoat, they were looking very shocked and horrifyed. Then Kitty, looking at him for the first time, actually fell over, screaming, from the shock. Rouge's gasp as she turned off his image inducer. Evan falling back against a wall, looking terrifyed. Then a bunch of people I didn't recognise, all reacting in much the same way. Fear, horror and disgust. Then I was being chased by an angry mob with pitchforks and torches. They were getting closer and closer and…I screamed, bolting up in my bed. 

Kurt and Rouge ran in the door. "Was, Mein liebe?" Kurt asked, worried. I opened my mouth to explain, still breathing hard. "There were people, all scared looking at me, or someone. And then I was being chased by a mob. They wanted to kill me, but…" I trailed off, thinking, confused. Kurt was looking a little paler. 

"It was just a nightmare." Said Rouge consolingly. "No, it wasn't. I don't have nightmares, I have memories." 

"Was?" 

"Ever since my powers started kicking in, I just go over memories while I sleep, I never have my own dreams. But they werent my memories. I think…I think they were yours, Kurt." I projected just the end onto the wall. "Ja, that's definetly mine. Remember, from what I was showing you about my school in france?" 

"Yeah, I suppose they were all yours. Gosh, is that how everyone acts when the see you?" Then I remembered he hadnt seen the dream. "Was? Like what?" 

"Like this." And I projected the rest of the dream onto the wall. He gave a sort of laugh. "Yeah, pretty much everyone. Just my parents, and the professor, and…you." His smile was more genuine this time. Then my memories seemed to catch up with the present me. He called me his liebe. But did he mean it…? We all said good night, after I had repeatedly apologized for bringing up such awful memories and he repeteadly told me it was no big deal. I purpousfully chose to play a memory of me riding my bike, so that I wouldn't have nightmemories again. 

The next morning, I was awakened to very loud music and people telling whoever had turned it on to turn it off in a very rude way. I rolled over, ignoring it and continuing my dreaming. Kurt bamfed in to see if it was us. 

"Liebe, what are you doing?" I woke up very suddenly and the music stopped. Suddenly I figured out where the music was coming from. I always listened to music when I rode my bike, and I always had it on full volume. I had also recently started sleeping with my mouth open right before I woke up. I must have been projecting my dreams again…along with a very loud audio. No wonder my throat hurt so much. 

Luckly, the next sound that was heard was several alarm clocks all going off at the same time. It must be time for school. "Sorry, Kurt, I was dream remembering. I didn't mean to wake everyone up." It once again took awile for my memories to catch up with the rest of me. It must have been the lack of sleep that made me blurt out what I was thinking. "Wait, did you call me Liebe again? Do ya mean it?" He blushed. I took that as a yes. "Aww, I feel the same way, Mein Kase." 

We hugged each other. "Did you know you just called me your cheese?" he asked, slightly confused, but mostly amused. "Yeah, but trust me, Its definetly a good thing. My friends and I hold cheese in the highest honor. We could start fights if anyone disturbs the good name of cheese. I think it was the first German word I learned. It usually is, since I tend to learn "I like cheese" in whatever language it is I'm trying to learn." He laughed again. "Well, its perfect then. And I'm gonna have to meet these friends of yours. They sound interesting." 

"That can be arranged, but you'll probably end up regretting it. Well, as long as you don't have sugar, it shouldn't be a problem. Or glitter for that matter. Or sanity." 

We got ready and set off downstairs for breakfast. It was outside the door that I remembered I had woken up pretty much the entire institute. "Uh, I'll skip breakfast today." I turned to try and get away, but Kurt had my hand in his. "Don't worry, they won't be mad." He said, sounding like he could read minds. I followed him in timidly. Some of the people looked slightly ticked off, but it mainly looked like "Night of the living sleep deprived" 

They all looked up as we entered. "Sorry, I didn't mean to wake everyone up." I tried a smile and nearly succeeded. "Don't worry 'bout it. Were mainly just bummed because the Tv's busted." Evan explained. The smile worked this time. "I might be able to fix that." 

"How? I sorta shot a spike through it after Amara blew it up and bobby turned it into a hunk of ice." 

I tapped the side of my head. "I got an idea. Anyone got any preferences?" We decided on the episode of the Simpsons where Homer ends up eating his pet lobster. I turned off the lights and projected it out of my eyes. I remembered it perfectly.

At school, I noticed that a lot of the brotherhood were in my classes. Todd, Fred, and Lance were all in my gym class, and Pietro was in my science and english. Tabby was in my Spanish. During last hour, an announcement came over the PA system telling everyone about the assmbly that period, welcoming our new principal. Our old one had retired the previous year. Kurt and I sat with my friends Andy, Good Dan, Jenn, Liz and Staci, but some of the other students from the institute were nearby. They were whispering something about on of their old principals and someone named Mystique. I leaned over and whispered to Kurt, "Who's Mystique?"


	6. New memories and new principals

During last hour, an announcement came over the PA system telling everyone about the assmbly that period, welcoming our new principal. Our old one had retired the previous year. Kurt and I sat with my friends Andy, Good Dan, Jenn, Liz and Staci, but some of the other students from the institute were nearby. They were whispering something about on of their old principals and someone named Mystique. I leaned over and whispered to Kurt, "Who's Mystique?" 

"Shes the leader of the Brotherhood. Well, second in command. She watches over the guys there and gives them orders and they occasionally do stuff for Magneto, the true leader. And, well, she's also kinda my mom." He didn't look to happy about that. 

Before we could continue our conversation, someone walked up to the podeum and put up their hands for quiet. I shifted in my seat and accidently brushed my arm against Kurt's. I got a clear picture of a very strick looking woman and a name, Raven Darkholm. I somehow knew that this was his old principal, this Mystique. It must have been one of Kurt's memories. The lady they were introducing looked a lot different. She had long blond hair, blue eyes, and a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. They called her "Ms. Victoria Baxter." 

She chatted a little and then dismissed us back to class. I could still hear the others wondering in whispers if she was Mystique or not. She was busy shaking hands. This gave me an idea. 

I gave Kurt a quick, "Meet you on the bus." Before running towards the new principal. I was the last person she shook hands with and I managed to get a few of her memories before she broke the handshake. I wondered if she knew that these sudden memories were brought on by me. She might recognize the signs of being a mutant, since she had dealt with so many. 

I rushed out to the bus where Kurt was waiting. "It is Mystique." I confirmed. 

"How could you tell?" he asked curiously.

"I stole some of her memories when I went up to shake her hand." He seemed curious so I continued. "I only got a few and they werent very clear. One was here transforming into Darkholm, one was her bossing around the Blob and Avalanche. But the last one was really weird. I looked around to make sure no one was looking, then put a hand to his forehead. This time, instead of letting his memories flow into me, I pushed mine back into him. It was like fighting against a current while swimming, but it worked. 

There was a blue baby laying on a metal table. Magneto floated over and injected a red chemical into him. The baby began to scream and flail. Mystique looked horrifyed. "You said it wouldn't hurt him! You said it would just make his powers begin." She picked up the baby, who was still howling. "It will, but we must give him more. Suffering is nothing compared to the power he could have." Mystique ran out with the baby, through a few dark passages and outside. A strange howl filled the air and wolves appeared seemingly out of nowhere and chased her onto a bridge, where the baby fell into the river. It was about to his the rocks at the bottom, when it disappeared with a bamf. Mystique began sobbing. The memory ended. "Kurt, was-was that you?" 

"Yes. And that was my mother." He looked sort of upset. People were getting off the bus around us. We saw Rouge walking by and she poked us. "Our stop." We got off too. Kurt was silent as we walked home. When we walked in the door, a large group of students were telling the professor about the new principal. "We think she's Mystique." One put in. 

"I know shes Mystique." I told them. I launched into my story of how I found out. When I finished, the professor looked thoughtful. "Well, now were positive the Brother has followed us from Bayville. Hmm, I was hoping we wouldn't have any more conflicts." He called Logan over and they went off somewhere discussing plans. The group that had surrounded him scattered again. I went off upstairs to read some French textbooks and hopefully learn French by the next day.

That Friday, the professor called some of us into his office to tell us about some new activity on cerebro.

"Cerebro has detected a new mutant in Lisle." No…It couldn't be…

"She goes to Naperville North." It *Couldn't* be, could it…

"Her name is Priya." I made a small noise like an "Arn." It *was* her.

The professor looked up at me, as did the rest of the team. "Uh, I kinda know her." That was an understatement. The only way this could possibly get any more interesting was if…

"There's also another new mutant in Wheaton, named Jenn."

It just got interesting. The professor seemed to notice and looked at me again. 

"Uh, I know her too."

"Great, you can be in charge of recruiting them."

"So, uh, can they come over tonight and I'll explain things to them?"

He nodded and I grinned. A sort of unintentionally evil grin. Oh, chaos will reign tonght…


	7. Warning, do not mix sugar and glitter

Sure enough… When Priya got there, the first thing she asked was. "Where is this Kurt? I want to see how sad he is to want to go out with you." I think she was joking…I hope.

After Priya had taken up poking Kurt in an investigatory manner, Jenn arrived. "Does this place have any Jane Austin?" I think she was joking…I hope.

She too said hi to Kurt, only with less poking (it's a midget's duty to poke things) and then I ushered them upstairs to my bedroom. Luckily Rouge wasn't there. 

I got out the sugar and then got right to buisness. No point beating around the bush. "Ok, I know you guys are mutants." They both froze. "I am one too, don't worry. This whole place is full of mutants too." I then showed them my powers. Well, except for the near death thing. They, in turn, showed me theirs. Priya could create a substance through her hands that was sort of like propane. By rubbing her fingers together, she could light this on fire and shoot streaks of flames at things. She also seemed impervious to fire, as her hands were ablaze and she didn't appear to be affected. The propanish stuff also seemed to make people stop breathing if it was put too close to their face. Priya was once again unaffected. 

"I found out I could do this this morning. I nearly killed my little sister. My parents, uh, werent exactly pleased." "Professor Xaiviar wouldn't mind if you lived here. He already said you both should come and train here and live here if your parents would allow it." Priya smiled and said, "I don't think my parents will mind at all, seeing as they already told me I should find another place to stay where I wouldn't be able to kill my sister."

We turned to Jenn. "What are your powers?" Priya chose that moment to give Jenn a good, hard, midgety poke in the ribs. Jenn let out a squeak and as she did so, some kind of sound ripples came out of her mouth. The force knocked over Priya. "*That's* my power ." We all started laughing. "I can also shoot the same force out my hands." She demonstrated and nearly knocked over a lamp. "It might be ok with my parents if I stay. If I tell them that this place will help me control this, they might let me. I'm sorta accident prone with this." 

"Oh Jenn, you're accident prone with everything." Priya put in. Jenn stuck out her tongue at Priya, creating a small ripple that luckily did nothing.

"Jenn, you can call your parents on my phone." I offered. 

She did so and after a few minutes of debating they finally agreed it would be ok. As soon as she hung up the phone, we started giggling and jumping around in circles. "Do I get to meet your friends now, liebe?" I looked up at the chandelier. Kurt was standing on it, wearing his image inducer. "How'd you get up there?" Priya asked. Kurt answered by jumping off, disappearing and then reappearing with a bamf right next to her. "You aren't the only mutant."

"Kurt, were you spying on us?" I asked.

"Just a little." He admitted, blushing slightly.

"Are you going to take off your watch?"

"Uh, no?" he asked hopefully.

"C'mon, they'll find out eventually."

"Fine." He gave in with a sigh. Priya and Jenn looked somewhat intrigued. Then Kurt took off his watch. Jenn gave a small squeak and a ripple knocked Priya over. She didn't notice. She was staring at Kurt. Both of them were staring, open mouthed at him. Priya's hands had lit on fire and she didn't even notice. 

"…uh…guys…guys…GUYS." They finally tore their eyes away from Kurt and looked at me. 

"Its still Kurt. This is just how he really looks."

"Hi." Said Jenn cautiously. Priya had gone back to staring at Kurt

"GUYS."

"Ok, sorry, Ok, I'm ok now." Priya said.

And then the sugar kicked in. I remembered that I had glitter in my dresser. I surreptitiously slipped some to Priya and Jenn. But due to Kurt's heightended senses, he smelled the fruity scents when the caps were open. "Do you guys smell something?" And that's when he was pounced by 3 hyper hopping midegts simentaniouly. "No fair, I don't have one!" I gave him a spare, but he must not have known that glitter doesn't work on girls. After 3 minutes of heavy glittering, Kurt resembled a giant blue glitter blob with pointy ears and a tail. He tried rubbing it off, because that's we did whenever we got hit with some, and it worked fairly well for us, but due to his fur, it didn't come off so easily. Or at all. Glitter tends to stick to fabrics for at least 5 washes, and fur seems to be the same way. We were interrupted by the professor clearing his throat at the door. We looked up guiltily. "We're not doing anything." 

"I just stopped by to introduce you to a new mutant. Scott and Jean just went to pick him up." A tall red headed figure appeared in the doorway.


	8. Flamey gets crushed

A tall red headed figure appeared in the doorway. "This is…" but the professor was cut off by 3 high pitched voices all screaming "ANDY!!!!!" 

The figure in the doorway stopped. "What are you guys doing here? Are you guys mutants too?" Priya lit her hands on fire. "Does that answer your question, Andy?" 

"Guys, we have glitter, and Andy is right there." I pointed out. 

"Oh yeah!" Priya remembered. The three of us started glitterizing Andy, but after the first few streaks, we noticed that it had stopped affecting him. Instead, the glitter was going straight through his arms. "Hey, what's going on?" shouted Jenn. Priya was still glittering him. "Well, I am moving into a house for mutants. I can walk through solid stuff." Kurt came out from my room. He had forgotten to put his watch back on. "That's kinda like Kitty's power." Andy noticed Kurt's appearance for the first time. He jumped back and fell through the wall behind him. A girl's scream filled the air. I couldn't tell if it was Kitty's or Andy's. Andy came backing out through the wall again. He turned to look at Kurt. "Andy, this is Kurt."

"Wait, Kurt?"

"Yeah."

"Kurt Wagner?"

"Yeah."

"Kurt from school?"

"Yeah!"

"Kurt that sits at our lunch table?"

"Yes Andy, that Kurt."

"Oh."

Kitty then walked through the wall behind him. Priya looked intrigued, but Andy and Jenn jumped and squeaked and Jenn's ripple knocked him over. He climbed to his feet. "Andy, Jenn, and Priya, this is Kitty. She has the same power as Andy." She shook hands with everyone, but when she got to Andy, she had a little trouble. Her hand kept Phasing through his. "Andy, stop being intangible." I told him.

"Its not me." He replied, seeming confused.

"Well, its not me either." Kitty informed us

They stopped with their hands halfway through one anothers' and Priya poked Andy and I poked Kitty. Both of us were met with solid flesh. "This is really weird." I said, voicing everyone's opinion. The professor was watching us poking the two with interest. "hmm, Interesting. Well, I'll leave you all to get aquainted." He rolled away down the hall. 

Andy and Kitty went back to poking each other with intrigue as they continued not to touch each other. Kurt started to scratch violently and complain that the glitter was making him itch. I tried to help him dust it off, while priya rolled on more. Jenn stood there looking confused as to what to do until she noticed Evan watching us. She waved at him and gestured for him to come over, eager to meet another mutant. "Hi. I heard there were new mutants here, so I decided to come investigate. Then I heard a scream and decided itd be better to just watch. So what do you guys do?" 

"Well, I make force ripples that knock things over, Priya makes fire with her hands, and Andy seems to be able to walk through solid stuff. What about you?" 

"I shoot spikes, or rather bones out my body. See?" He shot two long spikes into the carpet next to them. They were about as long as fencing foils. Which is probably what gave them the idea to do what happened next. "You ever fence before?" Jenn asked him. "Cause you know, it is getting kinda boring around here and we could spice things up." 

They both grabbed a spike and stood in the dueling position. "Dullness is as much produced within doors as without by rain." Evan said. Jenn froze. "Did you just intentionally quote Jane Austin?" 

"Yeah, shes my favorite author. I have all her books." They began to fence. 

"I was beginning to think I was the only one who liked Jane Austin anymore. She's my favorite author. Do you prefer Sense and Sensibility or Pride and Predjudice?"

"Definitely the first." They continued to fence and talk of Jane Austin until Kurt and I managed to forcibly take back the glitter. She kept lighting it on fire, and as should be quite plain, fire, fur and anything from bath and body works should not be mixed together. 

It took me "dying" to stun Priya for just long enough for Kurt to steal away the glitter. I had been working on untangling the "power yarn ball" and had managed to do enough, it seemed, to move my fingers, though it didn't really help much. 

As soon as Priya noticed that Jenn was talking about Jane Austin, she forcibly dragged Jenn away to their new room, saying that she needed a time out for spreading such evilness about. Kurt went off to try and wash the glitter off and Kitty took Andy off to show him the rest of the house, mainly where the video games were. Evan gave up on Jenn getting out of "punishment" and went off to read some of his precious Jane Austin but I noticed that he took his and Jenn's fencing foil along. Hmm, strange how he wouldn't just toss those and make some new ones next time.

I decided to see how Priya would punish Jenn and walked into their room to find Priya making Jenn watch clips from the ring on the tv over and over. It instantly brought back memories of the first time I had seen the movie and I tried to find a coat to hide under, but settled for a blanket and a dolly instead. Darn my memory. Priya took to laughing at me at once. 

Andy and Kitty returned shortly after, but after trying and failing miserably to enjoy such gruesome torture that was The Ring, Kitty left. We were just getting to the scene where Samara crawls out of the television in excrutiating detail when we felt a sudden breeze and a tall, thin, white haired boy appeared leaning in the doorway.


	9. Lunch and echoes

"Well, well, I find all four of the new mutants in one room. Magneto sent me over to see what the new recruits are like." He looked each one of us over before his eyes fell on Priya. "I know the rest from school, but who are you?" he asked her. 

"Uh…" The others seemed confused, and I only knew of him because of stolen memories. So it fell on me to do the introductions. "Guys, this is Pietro. He's part of the Brotherhood of mutants. They want to kill the entire human race. They're also sort of the x-men's enemy."

"Well, we wouldn't *have* to be, if you guys would just stay out of our plans. And I'm still waiting to hear who *she* is." He gave Priya another curious look. 

"That would be Flamey." I said, making up a nickname for her quickly. "That's Ripples." I said pointing to Jenn. "And he's Haze. I'm Memory." 

"Don't I get her real name?" he asked, seeming slightly offended. But before I could retort, the mansion alarms went off. "Damn! It seems they've finally found out I'm here. And before I could even get your name." He looked at Priya. "But we will meet again." And he was gone with a zip. A few seconds later Wolverine rushed in, followed by Scott and someone who looked like he could be related to kurt or a gorilla. I searched all the memories I had gotten from the xmen and found a hazy one that identified him as "Mr. Mc Coy." 

"Professor said he sensed Quicksilver, er Pietro, in the mansion, coming from this wing. This is the only place I can get a good enough sent of him, so I figure I should start here." Wolverine looked at us half inquisitive, half scary. 

"Well, Pietro *did* stop by, but he only wanted to find out who we are. Probably report back to Magneto. He did seem more interested in some of us that others." Priya glared as the rest of us stifled giggles. I noticed that her hands had flared up, as a result of her annoyance. Now Wolverine looked confused, but he didn't pry. "We didn't give him any names or abilities. Just aliases. May I introduce Flamey, Ripples, Haze, and Memory. He did recognize us from school. All except Priya. She went to a different school, but come Monday he'll know. Then the alarm rang and he ran off."

"Lemme guess." Said Priya. "Super speed." I nodded. "Well, If you see him again, tell someone right away." Put in Scott. With that, the adults/ Scott left us looking amused. The look on Priya's face was priceless. It was as if two emotions were fighting on her face. One was annoyance and displeasure. The other was, well, excitement and at the same time confusion. I think she wasn't sure what to make of Quicksilver.

That Sunday was our first Danger Room training session. The professor and Logan watched us fight the machinery from a little sky box in the corner. It was supposed to be just us new students, but Kitty and Kurt begged them until they were allowed to join in. None of us were really good. Priya seemed to know what she was doing, but really she was just exploding everything, as shown by the fact that she nearly blew up Andy three times. Jenn was managing to destroy some stuff, but she didn't really seem to know how to properly control her powers. She was good at making it go on, but sometimes she would make ripples unintentionally. Andy could phase through stuff, but, like me, he couldn't really do offense. I didn't have hardly any defense either. I deflected a few blasts with minor telekinesis, but I mainly just tried to dodge stuff, and Kurt had to save me several times from being zapped by a laser. Memories were no good against technology. 

After about 15 minutes, the professor took mercy on us and let us stop. Several of us were slightly scorched, and Andy seemed to have a slight limp from when he didn't phase in time and tripped over something. Kitty tried to support him with her arm, but he ended falling straight through her. We tried not to laugh…too hard. 

"Not *too* bad for your first time. But you're obviously gonna need some hand-to-hand combat training. That can start Monday, after school. And you'll need to train in acrobatics, agility, and reflexes. We can get some of the older xmen to do that, at least for a while.

"EEEEEEEE!! PRIYA!" It was the next day at school, during lunch. We had introduced Staci to Kitty, who had decided to sit with us, and then had made Priya jump out from under the table. Staci was seeing Priya for the first time since she had moved away, two years ago. "What are you doing here?" 

"I moved back. And…" but she was interrupted by Pietro. He had walked over and hidden behind a nearby tree (since we always sat outside) and just now had come out. 

"So your name is Priya eh. I like it." Priya blushed furiously. 

"What do you want, Pietro?" Kurt asked, sounding annoyed.

"Nothin' concerning you, fuzzy. I just wanna have lunch with Priya." He said her name in a weird way. Sort of like a lovestruck puppy. Priya giggled. … Wait, Priya giggled? Priya *never* giggled. Devilish grinning, sure, meniacal laughter, definetly. But giggling? Hmm, pigs must be flying somewhere. 

Priya gave a pointed look at Staci, who went and sat next to Jenn so Pietro could be next to Priya. Good Dan and Liz were missing that day. Everyone was staring at Priya, who was acting so out of character that we all expected her to sprout wings and fly away. I guess stranger things had happened. Staci broke the awkward silence first. 

"Did, um, Pietro just call you Fuzzy? Cause, like, you don't look fuzzy at all. Unless you're an alien that's taken over someone's body and plans to eat old people!" Staci and Pietro broke into laughter and the rest of us faked doing so. Way to close to the truth.

Suddenly we were surrounded by what seemed to be shadowy people. They didn't seem real somehow. As if they were vapors or smokey versions of their former selves. 

"Any of you guys doing that? Kurt whispered.

"Nope." Was the collective response.

"Beth, any chance this is some sort of memory?" 

I shut my eyes. "Still there?"

"Yep."

"Then its not me."

Even Pietro had stopped laughing and noticed. He obviously had no idea what was going on either. No one else was outside, luckily. We all turned to Staci, who was still giggling about Kurt being a little green alien. "Staci?" Jenn asked.

Staci opened her eyes, looked around and then back at us horrorstruck. The people disappeared. "Oops, uh, I didn't do it? Too late for that now I guess. Ok, so I'm a mutant, whachagonnadoaboutit?" She said, looking as if she expected us to pull torches and pitchforks from behind our backs. The bell rang before we could respond. "Don't worry, Staci, we're all mutants too." Priya said in a comforting voice. She breifly lit up her hands. "See? We can't talk now, or we'll miss class, but after school follow us home and we'll explain everything." Staci looked relieved that none of us were planning to kill her, nodded, and then we all said goodbye to each other. 

That day after school, we all met in Jenn and Priyas room (minus Pietro of couse). We showed Staci our powers, and then asked her to show us hers. It turned out that she could sometimes see people from the past and sometimes even make them visible to others. During lunch she must have brought back a whole bunch of students who had walked there before. 

The longer the person had been there, the clearer their "image" was and the easier it was to make other people see them. Staci showed us a little navaho indian girl who had lived on the property long before the institute had stood there. "They can talk to me and understand me. They call me Echo, since I can see the "Echoes of the past". I told them that sounds lame, but they won't stop." She blushed, but then I told her we called Priya "Flamey", and she felt better. Priya kicked me in an annoyed sort of way as the rest of us giggled. "We have to introduce you to the professor."

"You don't have to. I've been listening." The professor spoke into our minds. "Sorry, I don't usually do this, but I wanted to know who this new person that you brought in was. Staci is welcome to stay, if she so wishes. And Beth, you have a danger room training with Logan in five minutes. Priya, Jenn, then Andy are after her. He's going to start teaching you hand to hand combat."

I said goodbye to everyone and made my way down to the Danger Room. I was slightly nervous, but I figured it couldn't go much worse than the first time. It might even improve if I was fighting a real person. Memories work much better on things that are actually alive. But then again, Logan looked about 10 times scarier than any machine.

When I got into the room, Logan handed me a long wooden stick. Evidently I was supposed to use this to fight him. He flashed out his claws and told me to try and hit him with the stick. I stood there, unsure of what to do. I really hate hurting people, even if they are provoking me. While I was trying to work up the courage to hit him, he used his claws to cut the stick in two.

"C'mon! Do something."

I managed to whack him once in the leg before he kicked both the sticks away. Then he grabbed my wrists. "What are ya gonna do now, bub?" I did have a slight idea. I doubted if it would work, maybe I'd just been reading too much Harry Potter. But I needed to search his memories, to find his worst memories. Maybe that would destract him long enough for me to get away. And for me to do this, I had to touch his skin. He was wearing gloves, but I might be able to touch his ankle. I slowly kicked off my shoes. I had purposefully not worn socks, in case I needed to try this. I put my foot against his ankle, hoping it'd be enough to get memories off of. Luckily it was. Searching for certain memories is like searching through boxes of photographs. If it's a clear memory, its labled and easy to find. If not, well, it'd take a lot of searching. But a person's worst memories sort of float around their mind, never really forgotten. It's not too hard to find them, which is why when I first looked at Kurt's mind, I got some of his worst ones right away. Logan's mind was a little different. 

They werent floating around, but I could sense them. There was a weird box, instead of smokey, it was red, and it was also locked. I touched the lock and it melted away. And then the box exploded.


	10. Nightmares from the past

Green light. It was everywhere. It made my head hurt. I couldn't remember what had happened, or anything really. I blinked and opened my eyes. I was in a tank of green water, with an air tube in my mouth. There were people in white lab coats walking around, some preparing an operating table, some with clipboards discussing some experiment. None of them looked familiar. I could hear them faintly. They were explaining, well, me I think. 

"So the green chemical speeds up the healing factor, right?"

"Exactly. The mutant's natural ability for healing is needed for the experiments to work properly, otherwise it wouldn't work. It's actually more of a power enhancer."

"When do we start the adamantium treatments?"

"A few hours. We should increase its medication to prepare it for surgery."

I slipped back into unconsciousness. 

Murmuring. The clink of metal. Then pain shot through my arm. I opened my eyes again and tried to move away and found I couldn't. The people in white coats were cutting my arm, right down to the bone. They sort of hollowed away around it. Then they brought in what looked to be a mini vacuum attachment and it started to pour in what looked like a liquid silver metal. Steam poured out of my arm. I screamed. 

"Should we restrain it? Increase the morphine?"

"No, more painkillers could jepordize the process. Besides, it has the healing factor doesn't it?"

"Healing and pain are two different things though."

"C'mon, what are you worried about? It's just a mutant, right? As long as it stays alive, we still get paid."

Blackness surrounded me once more as someone started to cut open my leg.

I awoke once more in the green tank. There were long gashes up my arms, hands, feet, and legs. My head throbbed and I could tell there would be a matching one around my forehead. I looked at my arm and could see the wounds visibly reducing. After a few minutes they were nearly invisible. I might be strong enough to escape now, but before I could do anything someone noticed I was awake and they had increased some dial on the computer. I felt myself loosing conciseness again. Before I went completely, I was left with one thought. Why?

I was once again on the operating table. There were people working on my hands again. They cut slits in between my fingers and inserted a thin, rectangualar shaft. They cut open the tops of my hands and it almost looked like they were soldering the mucles to it. After sowing up the top, they inserted thin blades into the shafts. One of them messes with a computer and I felt a small electric shock shoot through my body. I also felt the blades slide out between my fingers, though the skin that had just healed. It was not a pleasant feeling. 

I was back in my tank and the most awake I had been for a long time. I was also angry. Really angry. Why? Why would they do this to me? I was still alive, still human, even if I was a mutant. Ah, exactly. I was a mutant. Mutants were just guine pigs to these people. And if I didn't get out, who knows what they would do next? 

How did that work? With a roar of pain, I felt my claws slide out. Ah, there we go. Now it was time for *them* to feel pain, for once. I doubted if any of them had ever felt real pain in their lives. This thought just ticked me off further. I punched the glass in front of me. Aided by the claws, it cracked and I was carried out by the water rushing to be free. I blinked the water out of my eyes as the cuts caused by the broken glass healed. They were of small concern compared to what these people had done to me. I took my first real look around and to my surprise noticed another tank behind mine. 

Inside was a man who was huge and blonde. He looked part animal. They were probably experimenting on him too. I started using my new claws to free him. I had cut the first few lines when I heard an alarm going off and footsteps. I ran and cut through a wall before I realized it was made of metal. I kicked through and was in an operating room. I rushed through, throwing the only doctor who tried to object against a nearby wall, knocking him out. They were working on someone. It all seemed so familiar, but I couldn't place it. No time to think. 

I cut through three more walls before coming to an underground sewer. First ladder I saw I used to get out. Snow was all around me. I was just in a tshirt and shorts. Not even shoes. I did find a dog tag around my neck. One word. Wolverine. I saw smoke in the distance and started walking towards it. But it was cold, too cold. And then it was dark. Unfaltering, impenetrable darkness. An absence of everything.

I could feel time going by, but I was trapped in the darkness. I couldn't tell for how long. I felt something on my hand, something soft and fuzzy. My eyes snapped open and I tried to pop out my claws. They were gone. Maybe they had taken them out. The room spun before me. It was a lab room, but different from what I was used to. Maybe a hospital. They must have caught me. I had to get away. 

It was then I noticed what the fuzzy thing on my hand was. It was someone else's hand. And a tail. He was blue and covered with fur. And he was really familiar. I couldn't place him. I sat up. "Who are you?" I said, too tired to run, but still cautious. "Beth, you're awake! Don't you remember me?"

"*Who* am I?" I felt different too. I was smaller than I remembered from the lab, and much shorter. Or maybe I was just bigger in the memory. That's right, it was all just someone elses memories. I remembered everything all at once. And trust me, for me it was quite an awful lot of memories. And very overwhelming. I think I blacked out for a few second, because when I opened my eyes, I was laying down again. Kurt. Kurt was looking down at me, very worried. 

"What happened? I remember the danger room and Mr. Logan was trying to get me to fight him. So I tried to distract him with some of his memories and then…I think something exploded. That's what it felt like at least."

"You tried to get his *memories*? No wonder you've been out for three days. Not even the professor tries to read his memories. Its too draining. He doesn't faint or anything, mainly its Wolverine he worries about, but he still doesn't try."

"Why…Wait I've been out for *three days*?"

"Yep. And Mr. Logan's still out. He's been moving a lot though, twitching and stuff, even talking. You had everyone scared to pieces though. You just laid there, hardly breathing. At first we thought you did that dying thing, but Logan was unconscious too and the professor pick up your thoughts. Then we found a pulse. We'd thought you were really dead this time at first."

I was still trying to work things out. "What's wrong with reading Logan's memories?"

"He has sort of a, well, troubled past. He was experimented on earlier, before he came here. The people who did it locked away his memories pretty good. They got mind controlling mutants to hide them pretty good. And when the professor has tried to unlock them, he can only get flashes that weren't hidden good enough, and the deeper he looks, the worse Logan's headaches get until he's nearly unconscious and has to stop."

"Hmm, he only reads minds, right? If they were locked away, Logan wouldn't be able to think about them, right. Maybe that's why the professor had to go so deep, straining Logans mind and stuff. I found the memories though, they were locked up. Remember all the boxes from when I searched your memories? Everyone's got those, but his were locked up. That must have been what the other mutant did."

He looked amused. "You always try do explain everything, doncha?"

I smiled too. "Yeah, It's a habit. But it was weird though. It's like I *was* him. That's what it felt like, when I was in his memories. Even when I woke up, I still thought I was him. I couldn't even remember you. And I thought I still had claws."

"*That'd* be a funny sight, you with claws." Then the fuller implications hit him. "You mean you actually got into his memories? That's…"

But he was interrupted by a groan from the bed opposite us. Logan was waking up.


	11. Battle of the stalkers

He looked around, seeming disoriented, as if the room wasn't in focus yet. He put one hand to his forehead and let out a moan. Then he noticed us.

"What did ya do to me, kid?" he said quietly.

"Uh,…"

I was saved from trying to answer anything because the professor rolled in. 

"Ah, good, you are both awake. Can you try to explain what happened?"

Logan spoke first. "I had her by the wrists because we were doing a fighting session. And then I felt something brush against my ankle and something, well…" He seemed to struggle for the right word.

"Exploded. I was trying to find some memories to distract you. It obviously didn't work like I thought it would. I didn't know about your past. Honest. I'm really sorry."

"Can you tell me what you guys saw. You did see some memories, didn't you?" I think he was talking to both of us.

Wolverine tried to explain. "Well, there was this, and green light, and the…"

"Wait, let me explain." I stood up and turned off the lights. Images flickered to life on the opposite wall. The professor watched intently. Kurt seemed highly shocked and disgusted, like he was about to be sick.

"If you are feeling better, you may go with Kurt. Logan and I need to talk about a few things. The two adults watched us get up and leave the room. We had barely shut the door when some very loud and high pitched squeals filled the hall. Priya, Jenn, Staci, and Andy had spotted us and through the jumble of talk in following seconds before they calmed down, I got the basic idea that they were glad that I was awake.

"You missed three days of school. The class was boring, but lunches have been getting increasingly interesting. Especially since Pietro sneaks over from those weird guys he hangs out with daily now, and Kitty and Evan have started regularly sitting with us. And then today, two rather unpleasant people tried to join our table as well." Staci gave a snort of displeasure. 

"Have you met, or rather smelled, since you can smell him before you see him, a guy named Todd?"

I nodded. 

"Well…"

"Ooh, lets show her, cmon, I'll show her." Priya was bouncing with energy and laughter. "Read my memories. They're *funny*."

I sighed. I was still feeling a little drained. "Ok-ay." I got the memories quickly and then projected them onto the wall.

They were sitting there at the usual table outside under the purple tree (well, it has purple flowers at least). Toad, Fred, Lance, and Wanda were watching Pietro talk to the others. Toad left them and hopped, er walked over and plopped down next to Staci. "Yo, whats up, chick?" Staci looked like she wanted to throw up. Preferebly on Toad. "So, yo, man, why you sittin over here? I mean, besides all the ladies, a course." He looked around the table and back at Staci. 

Stalker Dan chose that moment to walk over. "Great, all we need is another lovestruck dumbass." Staci rolled her eyes and tried to push Toad off the seat beside her. He was stuck like glue, or rather, slime. Rather than falling off, he put his arm around her. "Oh God, there's a toad on me." Toad was saved the trouble of being punched in the face by a shadow that fell over the group.

"Where's Beth." Stalker Dan demanded. "She hasn't been here all day." 

"She's, uh, at home." Priya quickly came up with a lie. "She's dying."

Dan gasped.

"I'm not serious, dumkopf, she's got the flu."

Dan looked immensely relieved. "Oh, good, you had me scared there for a while. Now, can you guys help me think of something to write for her? I'm making a po-em."

"Now Dan, don't be rash, there's no need to inflict such horrors on the world." Staci told him kindly.

Dan looked confused. "What horrors?"

Toad was getting annoyed. "Yo, man, cant you see the ladies don't like you? They're too busy with me, ya dig? They've got better guys to be with than some lame-o like you."

"Who the heck are you, Stinky? And how could someone like *you* become such an expert on the ladies? Unless you *were* one, but even then, you'd probably not know much about them."

"I happen to be Todd Tolansky, ladies man extrodinare. You wanna make summat of it?"

Dan looked nervous. He was the kind of guy who couldn't beat up a dead butterfly. Then he noticed that everyone was watching. Something like, 'If I win, they'll tell Beth about my brave heroics in her honor. Then she's bound to love me, if she doesn't already.' Must have crossed his mind.

"Yeah, Yeah I do."

They started hopping about and punching the air in front of them, since they were about 10 feet apart, with a lunch table and several people in between them. They continued to do this for the next couple of minutes, and before they got close enough to hurt each other, the bell for the next class rang. Everyone else, who had gone back to their lunches and conversations got up and left, except Priya and Pietro, who were still watching with great interest at the antics of the two. Eventually, the brotherhood came over and "rescued" Toad from Stalker Dan.

"I coulda beat him, yo. Wanda, did you see how brave and manly I was? And I wasn't even trying that time. It's all pure skill." He puffed out his chest as Wanda quaked with either suppressed laughter or rage.

Lance yelled back to the lunch table. "Hey, Quicki, stop mooning over your girlfriend and come on, were gonna be late."

Pietro gave Lance a glare and Priya a wink, blew her a kiss, and then ran off."

Priya looked as if she was about to swoon with happiness. If it had been a cartoon, she would have little heart bubbles popping all around her.

The memory ended. "Hey, you weren't supposed to that last part!"

"Sorry Pri, I'm getting a little tired."

I then joined in the others, who were laughing and looked as if they were about to fall over. Then they did. 

Andy managed a few words between gasps of laughter. "Priya…and…Quicki…sittin'…" That's when he caught fire. Not big enough to hurt him much. Just enough to make him give a girlish yelp and have to stomp his feet to stop them from burning. Priya herself was nearly completley covered in angry red flames. "Don't make me share what I saw you and little Ms. Kitty doing."

Andy's eyes grew wide. The rest of us burst into a fresh wave of laughter. 

"You'd so better not. And we weren't doing *anything*. Just…" He mumbled something indistinct.

"Beth, get over here and get this memory before I light you on fire too." 

I obeyed with only minor giggling.

Andy and Kitty were watching the Simpsons on the couch in the living room. Andy gave a huge, fake yawn and *somehow* his arm was around a certain Kitty. Well, more in her shoulder, but the effect was the same. They grinned at each other and looked as if they would have tried for a kiss, if not a certain someone who'd be standing discreetly in the corner had not started laughing so hard that the couch had started on fire.

"Andy! How, um, un-victorian of you." Jenn put in. Priya was laughing so hard she looked as if she would accidently light something else on fire. The rest of us were laughing just hard. 

"What about you, Jennwise Gamgee?" Staci asked cheekily. "I saw you and Evan." More memory taking and displaying on my part. Jenn and Evan were reading Jane Austin together under a tree in the yard, from the same book. Their arms were linked and Jenn had her head resting on Evans shoulder. He was holding her hand. They looked very snuggliy. Ah, the power of Victorian reading.

More laughing. It was a wonder that no one had stopped by to see what was going on. I was doubled over with the pain of laughing so hard. Or maybe it was my headache from overusing my powers again after being unconscious for three days. But either way, another memory started.

Me and a certain fuzzy blue elf. He was showing me how much fun it could be to hang upside down from a chandelier. I was laughing in agreement that he was right, but mainly because he was tickling me with his tail. Someone called his name. He game me a kiss atop the head before bamfing away. My voice trailed away after him. "Hey, wait, how the heck am I supposed to get down."

We laughed continually for about another 10 minutes before the professor and Logan came out of the hospital wing. It was amazing at how quite it could get in less than a second. And how empty a hallway could get when only one person could teleport. 

I said goodbye to Kurt after he teleported me in front of my door. I was really tired, so I decided to go straight to bed. Rogue was in there reading, but she didn't look like she wanted to be bothered. I was all too happy to oblige.

It felt like no time passed between falling asleep and when the dreams started. Flashes of green, a glint of the operating table. Screaming. Horrifyed, tormented screaming. Eyes, all around me. Murmuring. Nothing was too clear. It kept going faster and faster, spinning around my mind, making my head hurt. And then another scream, longer and louder than the others. The spinning stopped, and I was left with the image of a man tied to a chair, blood pouring off him, unconscious. I woke up with a gasp, flashing out my claws. But they weren't there. There was a girl, gently shaking me. I jumped back and hit the wall. Familiar, but I couldn't place her. Not yet. 

"Rogue?" That was her. I was myself again. "Who was he?" Well, sort of.

"Who?" I blinked some more, with my hand on my forehead. The last image of my nightmare appeared on the wall for a few seconds. I hadn't tried to. Rogue took a step back. 

"I don't know. Maybe its just another nightmare." 

I *told* you, I don't have dreams, or nightmares. Just memories. That's never happened to *me*. I was staring at my other hand now, still clenched into a fist, trying to make claws. I looked up at her. "Logan."

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An: YAY! Chapter 11! Sorry If the romancy stuff is annoying. I had to embarrass all my friends equally so that maybe they'll be too busy laughing at each other long enough for me to flee the country. If I stop updating, it's because I'm getting tortured for trying to be devious like this. J (Well, *I* think its funny)


	12. Mutant car shopping

"It's, he's in your eyes." Indeed, I could see him reflected off her face. She squinted at my eyes. "I think it *is* Logan. But there's nothing you can do about it now. You have to try to go back to sleep. You look pretty beat. Plus." She made a face 'There's *school* tomorrow."

I somehow managed to fall back asleep, even with Logan's image in my mind. It was pushed out of my mind the next morning by Jenn and Priya coming in and literally leaping through the air onto my bed, which happened to contain me at the moment.

"Ouch, guys, what the heck."

"I Just got an email from my parents and there gonna send me money so I can buy a car!" Jenn was actually being loud. She must be really excited, since usually she spoke barely above a whisper. Now her sound ripples were continually trying to knock Priya and I back.

Jenn jumped off the bed and started skipping around the room singing, "I'm getting a ca-ar, I'm getting a ca-ar."

"You know who needs this rubbed in his face right?" Priya said looking cheeky. Large grins spread across our faces. "Oh, An-dy!"

Andy was far more unlucky that I, because instead of being pounced out of sleep by only two, shrieking, hyper midgets, he was attacked by three. His word choice was a little more, um, colorful than mine when he snapped open his eyes. We could hear German words coming from the bed on the other side of the room. (Andy and Kurt share a room) Priya perked up at a couple of the words that she knew, and I giggled. "*Kurt*"

Andy was somewhat awake by now. "What's going on *now*?" 

We explain why Jenn was so excited. He looked even grumpier. "I *had* a car. Then I became a mutant." He mumbled under his breath. The three of us perked up even more. We hadn't heard this story yet. 

"Well, my car is now phased halfway through the garage wall. We can't get it out. Half of it is in the living room." 

"Andy, couldn't you just phase into it and drive it out?" Andy thought for a minute and then smacked himself on the forehead. 

"Excuse me while I go call my parents." He ran off to find a phone and Kurt bamfed over to where he was sitting.

"When are you going to buy your car? Do we get to come too?"

"I'm going Sunday and everyone can come! If the car dealer doesn't knock off a couple hundred dollars just to get us to go away, then I don't know what would."

It was hard waiting Friday and Saturday, knowing what we were going to do Sunday, but the time finally came. Priya, Staci, and I of course had to accompany Jenn, and Andy decided to come along as well to make sure Jenn didn't get a better car that the one he had that was currently stuck through his living room wall. Kurt, Kitty, and Evan insisted on coming along as well, although we nearly through Evan out of the vehicle when he wouldn't stop quoting Jane Austin. As we were about to leave, a blur that was Pietro showed up along side the car.

"How'd you know about this? Jenn didn't tell anyone at school yet."

Priya looked guiltily at the ceiling and tried to whistle. 

"Uh,…"

"Did Flamey tell you?" I looked sneakily at Priya, who was giving me a death stare.

"What?"

"Oh, get." He obeyed and we broke out laughging at priya"And Priya, if you start the car on fire, we'll all die." I looked pointedly at Pietro. Priya wouldn't actually die, since she was flame retardant.

So instead of killing us all, Priya just smacked me upside the head and made death threats.

We finally arrived at some used car dealer, and decided to wreak a little havok before we actually bought a car.

"But how should we attempt to do this?" Asked Priya in mock concern.

"Don't worry, I've got it all planned out." I said and pulled several tubes of glitter gel out of my pocket. The guys seemed reluctant to touch such evilness, but no one else minded. We started out by putting huge globs of glitter on the back of the door handles, and streaks on the windows. The salespeople were looking at us suspiciously. They kept trying to come over and talk to us.

"Do you need any help sir? Sir, uh what are you doing?" Andy was currently rubbing glitter on the headlights. 

"Lubricating the lights."

"Oh." He looked confused and walked over to Kitty, who was putting smiley faces and peace symbols on a Volkswagen beetle with her lipstick.

"Ms., why are you, uh, coloring on the car?"

"Like, ya know, I'm making it look like this little car I had when I was 7."

"You had a car when you were 7?"

"Yeah, like totally! Well, not really me, more Mrs. Tiddly, my barbie."

"Your doll had a car?"

"Yeah, it was plastic and you could decorate it with crayons."

He backed away slowly, completely convinced Kitty was crazy. 

I was currently releasing the parking breaks of the cars that were on inclined ramps or slight hills. They mainly rolled into ditches filled with water. He seemed to give himself a pep-talk and then hurried over to where Jenn and Evan were fencing on top of a van.

"What is going on here?"

"What does it look like? We're practicing. We have to be in condition for the car fencer association's annual competition tomorrow."

He took a step backwards, meaning to flee when something very warm grazed his ear and he whipped around and looked up. Kurt had teleported Priya to the top of the building, where she had lit the car dealer sign on fire. 

The man screamed and ran inside.

We all fell over laughing. Priya nearly fell off the roof. 

We all walked slowly inside and tried to keep straight faces. We swiped all the chocolate from a dish on someone else's desk and ate it, making us even more hyper. Jenn walked up to the man who was quaking under his desk. "Excuse me, I'd like that car over there. How much is it?"

"5,000 dollars"

"Oh, that's well out of my price range."

"The lowest we can go is 4,750."

"I was looking for something more like 2,000. I suppose my friends and I will have to go back out and look some more." Priya pulled another tube of glitter out of her pocket and started to open it. The rest of us grinned.

"Its your! I can make it that price, just don't stay here anymore."

"Do I get a pair of fuzzy dice?" Jenn looked at him pleadingly.

"Whatever you want, just as long as you guys don't touch anymore of our cars."

We formed a large circle and skipped around singing, "Jenn got a ca-ar, Jenn got a ca-ar." Then we all fell over. Hmm, maybe we should stop eating candy, but what would be the fun in that?

We drove over to Andy's house to get his car out of the wall. We tried to be more normal here, but it didn't work very well. Priya and Jenn kept talking in third person and scaring Andy's mother. Andy himself kept trying to hold Kitty's hand and failing, so it looked as if they were walking around with parts of their hands inside each other's.

Pietro kept zipping around and knocking things over, although Jenn's near constant laughter ripples did about as much. The rest of us were telling parent-inappropriate jokes.

"Andy, maybe its time you fixed the car. It's nearly dark and you know how I feel about you driving in the dark." Andy's mother had finally spoken up.

"Sure. You guys get to see my expert driving now." He was grinning like crazy.

"If you're such a good driver, how did the car end up through the wall anyway?" Priya responded with a wide, sinister smile.

"Priya, respect your elders." Priya kicked his ankle. "Hey I need that for driving."

"So how *did* you manage this excellent bit of driving?"

"Well, I was driving into the garage, a tad too fast." Andy said sheepishly. "And then my mutant powers showed up for the first time when I tried to step on the brakes. My foot went right through the pedal and the car went halfway through the wall before I stopped phasing. It was not fun." 

"Poor Andy." Kitty said sympathetically. "I fell through the floor all the way to the basement my first time."

Andy had phased into the car by now and had managed to phase and start it. He managed to get it out of the wall and it was quite interesting to watch him use his rearview mirror while reversing even though for the most part he was staring at the wall that was halfway through the car. (Darn those habits subliminally ingrained into our minds from driver's ed that force us to do them even when its pointless.) Then Andy and the car melted away into the wall and we heard him honk the horn. 

"That's an interesting feeling." Was all he said.

We were about to return to the institute with our new cars (well, Jenn and Andy's *technically*) when Pietro's beeper went off. 

"Aw crud, they need me. Gosta go, Mera zindagi." And with that, he was gone.

"Pietro has a beeper?" Staci asked amazed.

"That's not important. Priya, have you been teaching him hindi?" I asked.

"Um, maybe?" 

"Silly Priya, Hindi's for movies!"

"Was that a joke?"

"So what if it was?"

"I don't like Jokes!"

"I don't like you!"

"Shadup!" we yelled together and then smacked each other's hands twice and poked each other in the nose. We're quite odd, don't mind us. (and if anyone knows where this is from, please tell me so I can be amazed)

Suddenly, we all heard Professor Xavier's voice in our heads. "Come back to the institute right away, Troubles starting."

We jumped in our cars and drove home.


	13. Deranged newbies and our first fight

By the time we got there, the other xmen were already suited up. Well, minus the old New Mutants. (We were the new new mutants). Priya practically flew out of the car and started jumping around like an excited puppy. "We're gonna fi-ight, We're gonna fi-ight!" She started shooting flameballs in the air and lit a tree on fire with them that Bobby had to put out. The professor shot her a look and she quaked under it.

"Sorry. I'll be good. So what exactly is going on?"

"Well, the brotherhood has decided to try to knock down the mobile classrooms at your school. (Our new school had classrooms unattached to the school that were kind of like trailers.) You and the others will have to go stop them."

We all hopped into the xvan and also Jenn and Andy's cars.

"Now remind me again why we're actually trying to *prevent* them from knocking down the mobiles. It seriously takes like seven minutes to get from one side of the school to there. Not to mention how soaked we get when it rains." I asked.

"Don't forget, that's where all the foreign language classes are. Think of all the lovely Spanish posters that would be ruined." Kurt put in.

A very shocked look crossed my face. "Can't you drive any faster Jenn?"

By the time we got there, Lance was creating minor earthquakes, and the Blob was about to run into one of the walls. Knowing how thin they are, he probably would have gone straight through to the other side.

"The Xmen are here to stop you!" Scott yelled to them. It didn't have the desired effect. Instead of looking scared, they nearly fell over laughing.

"Does he always talk like that?" I asked Kurt.

"Only when he's being "The leader". So, yes."

Lance addressed us. "It's about time you showed. Magneto wanted to introduce you to the newest members of the brotherhood." Pietro, Toad, Wanda, and Tabby stepped aside to reveal two people. One was John, decked out in his full trenchcoat. "This is Smog." He opened his mouth and exhaled and the area 10 feet around him was covered in a dense fog that was very hard to see through.

"Andy, stop, I can see that. Stop making faces." 

"Did I mention John can see through this stuff like its not there?"

John opened his mouth and it all disappeared.

"And this." Our attention all turned to the other person. "Is…"

"Dan!" Jenn, Priya, and I all yelled astonishedly. Jenn's ripples knocked over Andy.

Stalker Dan was standing there looking very proud. "They told me if I joined, I'd get to see more of you." He told me. "And see, they were right."

"What do you do?"

"Wait." He concentrated very hard and looked as if he was about to explode. He was even shaking. Then he morphed into something grey. And dense. And concrete.

He was a ramp. Like something you'd expect to see on a sidewalk. A *ramp*.

(AN: Priya made me put this in because of this one game on neopets. Its best not to ask or you might understand, which would be even more terrifying than being confused.)

I leaned over to Kurt and whispered "*That's* his power? He's a freakin ramp."

Not only that, but. He was back in normal form, shaking with concentration. Then he morphed into a brick.

"Puts a whole new meaning to dumb as a brick, doesn't it?"

"Fred came over and picked up Dan in brick form, then chucked him through a wall. We heard four thumps as Dan went all the way through the mobiles. (That's two classrooms and a hallway.)

"I *told* you the walls were paper thin." We saw Dan walking around, clutching his head slightly. He seemed kinda dizzy. But regardless, he held up his arms in triumph. "See, not even a scratch."

"Enough talk! Let's fight!" Someone yelled. It sounded kinda firey… (Hmm, I wonder who)

Priya threw a flameball at Stalker Dan, who screamed and ran around in circles before becoming a flaming ramp. He promptly tripped Andy, who was backing away from Lance, who was making minor earthquakes. Andy screamed as he fell, before hitting his head hard on the ground. He managed to mutter something sensible like, "The geeses, mommy, the geeses." Before completely loosing conciousness. Dan waited long enough to stop flaming before he changed back to a human and keeled over as well. 

Scott, Jean, Evan, Kitty, and Kurt were all doing what they do best. (If you don't know what, then you need to watch more xmen). This was made extremely difficult by the fact that John had covered the area with a thick fog. They kept hitting the wrong people with their powers, or tripping over other people. Pretty soon, a good number of good and bad guys were unconscious on the ground. Priya was throwing fireballs everywhere and when the fog suddenly disappeared, I assumed that she'd hit John. 

Jenn was knocking people over with her ripples before Fred fell intentionally on top of her and squished her half to death. "Jane Austen would find this highly immoral." Was all she managed to say before she too was lost to the realms of the dark. Priya quickly remedied the fact that Fred was still sitting on her by lighting him on fire. He ran around before running headfirst into a tree and falling over as well. 

I meanwhile was going around looking for someone with hidden memories to see if I could knock them unconscious like I did Logan. I figured that if there was no one, I'd just traumatize someone with a childhood gone amok instead. During the time that John still had his fog around, I wandered around and grabbed random people by the wrist. 

"Nope, Nope, *WHEN* did this happen Jean, Nope, unconscious, Rogue, Nope, Rouge again, Nope." Finally the fog cleared and I found one still conscious person to try. Wanda was currently fighting with Evan. I got hold of her wrist as she was shooting a funny blue light at Evan. She actually had some locked away memories. They had been re-written sort of. I tried to find the originals. There they were. A scene of her being dragged away by some men as she screamed for her dad. One of her when she was about 5, pointing at something and having it explode. She screamed in shock and then cried as her father smacked her, telling her to be more careful. A little white haired boy zipped to her side and then helped her off somewhere else. There were some other ones similar to this that came loose too. She collapsed on the ground, and I was suddenly kneeling besides. I blinked a little, still awake. 

Evan had been knocked out from behind by Toad, who had caught another blast from Priya. I noticed that the only to still concious were that Priya and Quicksilver, my brother. I shook my head slightly. Ok, back to being myself. I hadn't even lost conciousness this time. I felt the blackness creeping around the corners of my eyes. Darn, I had spoken too soon. I watched Pietro whisper something to Priya and then they both got truly evil looks on their faces and he had picked her up and raced off. Then everything went black. 

Father was there again. Hurting me, hitting me. Pietro was crying for him to stop, but he wouldn't. He smacked me between each word. "Why…Can't…You…Control…"…

"Beth, Beth! Are you OK." Liz was shaking me awake. Good Dan was over by Andy, poking him. "Dan and I were here late for Track. We saw the end of what happened." I Sort of nodded. Who was this again? Where was Father. Liz, that's it. "Are you sure you're OK? Cause If you're not, well, I can fix that."

"Whadya mean?"

She grinned and held up her hands. They started glowing with a white sort of energy. "I'm a mutant too."


	14. the evildoings of a leprechaun

We were interrupted by Dan breaking out laughing. He was still standing over Andy.

"What's wrong?" He managed a "come…see" between laughs. We went over and nearly fell over laughing. Andy was covered in very girly make up. He had dark red lipstick and purple eyeshadow, and also some bright blush. After we controlled our laughter enough to look around, we noticed that all the guys had had make up put on them. Evan had a frilly pink bonnet on. Scott had had eyes with long eyelashes drawn on his glasses in permanent marker. Toad had a fake moustache and goatee in marker as well, along with the make up. Kurt's hair was dyed pink. All of them had varying amounts of glitter on them. As soon as we had stopped laughing, we tried to wake them up. A few people were already waking up on their own. 

Logan arrived in the x jet. We helped bring people in. Most the brotherhood was still out, but those that were awake weren't trying to stop us. Logan raised his eyebrows as Liz and Good Dan climbed in too, but I just nodded. 

After we had taken off, I turned to them and asked, "So what do you guys do?"

Liz charged up her hands again. She turned to where Jenn was laying. The light went from her into Jenn, and Jenn seemed to glow. A second later Jenn opened her eyes. 

"Hi Liz, what are you doing here? Uh, where *is* here?"

Liz had moved to Andy and woken him up too. He was still in his makeup and no one really had the heart to tell him. Then she woke up staci. They asked pretty much the same questions that Jenn had. Liz was starting to look tired.

"The fight was a draw, and now were on the jet going back to the mansion. Liz and Dan are mutants." Jenn and Andy still looked slightly confused, but was strangely perky for someone who had just woken up.

Liz tried to explain what she could do. "I basically can heal people, but it does take a lot out of me. I can also drain the energy out of a person." She held up her hands again and this time they glowed black.

"How bout you Dan? Dan?" Dan had disappeared. Andy waved his hand through the air where Dan had been.

"I'm still here." Dan's voice came from about where Andy's hand was waving.

Andy jerked his hand back and then toppled over because of the ripple that had accompanied Jenn's squeak. Dan reappeared. 

"It's the invisible Dan!" Andy shouted from the floor, getting up.

"That was bad, Andy." Jenn said as she knocked him back to the floor with a small ripple. We had reached the mansion and everyone had regained consciousness by now. We all trudged back inside and while Liz and Dan went to meet the professor, Jenn, Staci and I went into Jenn's room to search for Priya. She was sitting there on the bed. 

"Priya, where were-" Jenn was cut off by several loud, and some high pitched, screams. Priya fell off the bed laughing. A few seconds later Kurt and Andy burst through the door. They, and probably the other guys, had finally noticed their, uh, decorations. 

"Priya what did you do to us? I know it was you!" It's a good thing the other guys hadn't figured out it was priya, or we might have had another fight.

"And Pietro." Put in Kurt.

"Yeah, I saw you and him run off."

"Hey, I don't like what you're implying. We ran off and borrowed Kitty's make up and then we knew you'd kill us when you saw, so we went and got sodas instead. We got back before even you guys did." 

"We can still kill you. Look what you did to my hair!" Kurt said, very distraught.

"I can fix that." Priya said with an evil grin. She grabbed him by his shirt collar, dragged him into the bathroom, and practically threw him in the bathtub, which was half full with water already.

Kurt made a high pitch "EEEE!" and said, "The water's *freezing*" Then Priya turned on the shower. The pink came out of his hair immediately. He jumped out of the bathtub, getting water all over the room in the process. He looked like a half drowned kitten. We all nearly fell over laughing, especially when Andy said "Here, Kitty Kitty." 

Kurt shot us all an evil look and then said "You have strange friends, mein leibe."

"I *did* try to warn you about that, mein kase."

A tremor ran through his body, shaking off most the water. Except now his fur was all poufy. 

"Poor little Kurty." I told him. "Now!" Priya shouted. Jenn sent off a ripple that knocked Andy into the bathtub. His scream was twice as high as Kurt's had been. Then Priya turned on the water, hitting him in the face. "PRIYA!" He phased through the tub, taking about half the water with him. "Glad it's not my bathroom." Kurt muttered. Andy was now chasing Priya around the bathroom and out into the bedroom. She tried to slam the door in his face. "Priya, he can phase, remember!" We followed them out into the room just as Kitty came in. Priya froze as Andy tackled her. Of course, he had been planning for her to keep move a little farther forward and instead tackled the nightstand. 

"Uh, like, what are you guys doing?"

"Not-thing." Priya said, trying to looking innocent. Andy merely groaned from under the nightstand. 

"Priya pissed off a leprechaun." Staci put in. Kitty looked confused for a minute and then decided to ignore it.

"Did one of you guys, like, see my make up?" We all stared at Priya, who tried to look even more innocent.

"Priya, what did you do to my make-up." Kitty said, trying to stay calm, but failing miserably. Priya looked pointedly at Andy and Kurt. Realization dawned on Kittty. 

"Oh, well, if you were the one who did that, then I don't mind."

"Not just her, but her and *Pietro*." I said. 

"Beth, you are so dead for that!" 

"Um, its getting kinda late, so maybe we should all leave."

"Priya, I vow revenge!" Andy said.

"Whacha gonna do? Send all your little leprechaun friends after me?"

Andy just smiled. "You see the Pink before you cry." 

"You wouldn't dare put me in anything pink."

"Not clothes, well, maybe a bonnet, but just remember, I can borrow Kitty's make-up too." Priya's eyes went wide.

When we all left, she was sitting on a corner of her bed against the wall and rocking back and forth saying "seven hours" continuously. It *was* 7 hours til we had to go to school the next morning.

"Like, what was that about?" Kitty asked. 

"Oh, just a little leprechaun style revenge." Andy told her with an evil grin.

Liz and Good Dan came up the stairs. Liz spoke first. "We've just got done talking with the professor, and he's said we could stay! I'm to bunk with Kitty and Jean, and Dan is going with Andy and Kurt."

Andy and Dan both got evil grins on their faces. "Think of all the torture we can do…"

Priya wasn't the only one who had a hard time sleeping that night. I kept having the same nightmares, er memories. Of Logan, the lab, and him sitting in that chair, horribly beaten. I woke up and looked at the clock. 4:00. I sighed. Well, at least theres time to work on my power ball. By the time Rogue's alarm went off, I had made it so I could move my right arm.

Later, I was walking down the hall talking to Amara when we saw Priya. She was twitching and muttering to herself. "Whats wrong with her?"

"The leprechaun keeps her up at night."

Amara game me a look, but didn't ask. When we got to the kitchen, Andy was grabbing the last box of Lucky Charms, just as Kurt bamfed in. "Hey, that's my cereal!" 

"Not anymore!"

"Can't I just have a little?"

"There's hardly any left and its mine!"

"Not if I steal it." Andy ran away and Kurt chased after him.

"He he he. Catch me lucky charms, they're magically delicious!"

Kurt pounced on Andy, but Andy phased through him and Kurt wound up smacking into the ground. Andy went and filled a bowl with the last of the cereal and 

some milk before Kurt got up. Kurt went to steal the bowl as Andy began to eat it, but his hand went straight through the bowl. He shot Andy a look and said "No fair!" Andy 

shrugged and smiled, eating his Lucky Charms "mmmm bigger marshmallows."

That day at school we started seeing annoucements for Homecoming, a big dance at our school. "I think we all know who were going with" I said to Priya, Jenn, Kitty, and Staci. "Not me." Staci said glumly. 

"Don't worry, we'll find you someone."

"I don't want just *anyone*, you know."

But Priya opened her locker and screamed. Kitty said "Awwwwwwwwww."


	15. A chapter to die for or at least I will

AN: (tries to explain why this chapter is so, um, special, but instead falls over laughing. Or maybe died. Or maybe "brutally murdered" would be a better way to put it.)

Inside was a silver pair of baby booties with flames engraved in them. On the bottom it read "Will Flamey go to Homecoming with Quicksilver?"

Kitty began squealing. "Awww, that's the cutest thing I ever saw!" Priya shot her a death look. She didn't mind the attention usually, but when it was over something like *this*, it was embarassing.

"Guys.." We looked where Jenn was pointing. Pietro was watching. His eyes grew wide as he noticed we were looking and he turned around and ran. Suddenly, a girl seemed to come from nowhere at a nearby locker. Pietro skidded to a halt, and at a small, surreptitious ripple from Jenn, he fell over. I nudged Priya in the back. She went over and helped him up and the two disappeared around the corner. I grinned at the others and said, "I'll just get her memories later. On "accident", of course. And by the way, good job Staci." The girl that had blocked Pietro waved at us and then faded away.

Lunch that day was one of the most interesting yet. Of course this was mainly because Stalker Dan decided to come try to eat with us. Another was because Pietro and Priya kept shooting each other sappy love looks. Until Dan started talking. Then we were all too busy trying not to laugh at him. And failing.

"Hey, guys. Were you impressed by my powers?" I rolled my eyes. 

"Yeah, we were." Andy said seriously. "Can you show us the brick again? C'mon, no ones around." Dan smiled and did so. Andy promply picked him up and threw him as far as he could. Dan landed in a puddle and became human again, only now he was very wet. "Ha Ha, that was funny." He said, trying to be sarcastic.

"Yeah, I know." Put in Staci.

"You know I love you guys, so I'll forgive you, this time." He said, trying to look charitable and instead looking pompous.

"Dan, you wanna be a brick again?" asked Andy. "I'll show you a trick."

Dan thought for a second, then turned into a brick. A few seconds later he was back in the puddle. As he brushed himself off again, he tried to ignore our laughter. 

"You wanna hear the name I've made for myself? Its really clever and it took me all night. Ok, ready? It's the Brick."

"The brick?"

"Yeah, ya like it?" We started laughing again.

"I woulda though you'd come up with something like 'Captain Dumbass" Staci said. Dan glared. "I'm really just here because of Beth." I blushed and rolled my eyes. "Dan, I'm taken, ya know."

"Really?"

"I've only been sitting by Kurt at lunch for every day since school started."

"So?"

"I've let him hug me." I said blushing even further.

Dan paused. "So?"

"You know how I react when guys do that. They end up getting smacked."

Dan finally seemed to figure it out. It'd only taken a year of him stalking me everywhere for him to do so. He backed away slowly, all the way back into the school.

"Well, all I can say is about time. And that's a good name for him Staci." I felt bad about being mean to him, but he just didn't take a hint.

After school, I went into Priya and Jenn's room to find Priya laying on the bed, staring dreamily off into space.

"Hey Priya, whats up." I surreptitiously placed a finger on the back of one of her hands. She was in such a blissful stupor, she didn't notice. I began to, er, 'borrow' the memories she had had after she had left with Pietro. She probably thought they were just flashbacks. Or maybe it was what she was currently thinking about. I grinned evilly. The memories fully retrieved a few seconds later, I then gave an even more evil grin and said, "Thinking about Pietro, huh?" 

She nodded before realizing what she had agreed to. "Shut up!" She said flushing. "I was thinking about, uh, well, uh, never mind!" She threw a pillow at me before I ran out, back to my room, where the other girls were waiting. 

"I got 'em!" I quickly turned off the lights and projected it onto the wall.

Priya and Pietro were walking down the hallway, both looking kind of shy. "So, will ya go with me?" She nodded. "Of course I will." "Je t'adore." Pietro whispered under his breath and suddenly his lips were on Priya's. She had her eyes closed and I could feel the excitement that had come with the memory. They pulled away after a few seconds and I barely heard Priya mutter "Wow" under her breath. Pietro's face seemed to share the same sentiment. A bell rang somewhere, signaling the next class. They said a hurried good bye and shuffled off to their next class, both still glowing pink. I noticed her hand was slightly trembling. I blinked and the memory ended. 

"We *have* to show Andy. And Dan. And Kurt. And everyone else." Kitty exclaimed, after squealing "Awww" for a few minutes. So we hurried over to the boy's room after getting Evan. I walked in last, and turned off the light and a few seconds later, and Priya once again returned to the wall. Once it was over, the girls returned to excited squeals, while the guys tried not to laugh too hard. Then we heard a very ominous sound from the doorway. It sounded like growling or a stove lighting, or both at the same time.

Everyone whipped around and saw Priya clutching the doorway with one hand, positively livid. Her hands were aflame and so was a small chunk of the door frame. 

"What…Are…You…Doing?" She asked, emphasizing each word. We were all frozen in place.

I tried to speak. "Um, nothing, nothing. Don't be angry, we just wanted to see."

The flames slowly subsided as Priya calmed down. "So you know I said yes then." A slow smile played at the corners of her mouth. Kitty smiled too.

"You know what this means?" We looked at her blankly. "SHOPPING!"

Priya was gone as quickly as if she had Pietro's powers.

"What, doesn't she like shopping?"

Later that night, I lay on my bedroom floor doing math. I heard a bamf above me and guessed that Kurt had appeared on the chandelier above. "Whacha doing Kurt?" He didn't answer, but I felt something brush against my arm. I looked up and saw hundreds of rose petals falling around me like snowflakes. Kurt appeared before me, laying in the same way I was. His face was inches from mine. I heard him whisper. "Will you go to homecoming with me?" 

"Of course." I whispered back. Our lips met, and I realized why Priya had been trembling, for a second, until everything but what I was doing was forgotten. It was short, but it was the best memory I had, and that's saying something. I heard the door open, and Kurt disappeared as Priya and Jenn came in. They must have seen him as he left or noticed the smoke and smell he left behind, because they gave me very accusing looks and evil grins. "*What*? I didn't do anything."

"What was Kurt doing here?"

"Um, Math?"

Their grins became even wider, if possible.

"Ok, he asked me to the dance."

"And"

"I said yes."

"*And*"

"He, uh, kissed me."

Priya and Jenn fell over laughing.

"Shut up! Don't make me show the memory again Priya!" Priya stopped laughing and glowered at me, but Jenn continued laughing. 

"We definitely need to get some dirt on Jenn."

The next morning, before even our alarm clocks went off, Rogue and I were awakened by excited squealing from Kitty. "Like, guys, you totally have to come see this. It's like so cute!" We followed her into her room after she had woken up Priya, Jenn, Staci, and Liz. She pointed at her wall. In it dozens of red roses were phased into the wall. They spelled out "Kitty + Andy = Homecoming?". Kitty was now jumping up and down and squealing again. "Now I *have* to take you shopping, Priya." 

"Don't forget Beth too, Kurt asked her last night." She said snickering as I glared at her. 

"I gotta go talk to him, tell him yes." She ran through the wall into Andy, Good Dan, and Kurt's room. We were forced to go through the hallway. We came in just in time to see her pounce onto Andy's bed and she started jumping up and down on it. She happened to be currently jumping *through* him, but Andy still noticed that his mattress kept flying about three feet off the rest of his bed. Andy swore, because of course it is quite shocking to be peacefully sleeping and then be abruptly jerked back to the world of the conscious by your bed flying into the air and then falling back down repeatedly. Kitty started excitedly squealing again. "Yes, Yes, YES! I'd love to go with you." Andy suddenly figured out what was going on and his eyes grew wide. "Really?"

"Really."

I whispered to Priya "Reeally Rahul?"

"Reeally Tonya"

"Mera naam Sonia hai!"

We then smacked hands and poked each other's noses. Again.

Jenn elbowed us. "Shut up! They're being cute." We went back to paying attention, but nothing much else happened, except their hands floating half through each other. "Rogue, I so know how you feel now. This is like totally frustrating to not be able to touch!"

Scott came in to shoo us off to get ready for school so we wouldn't be late to school. After getting my stuff, I went in to see if Staci was ready. She was standing by her nightstand, the curtains from her open window blowing in her face. She had some sort of a card in her hand. "What's that?"

She did a sort of half jump because she hadn't realized I was there. She thought for a couple of seconds, then grinned as she stuffed it in her pocket before I got a closer look. "It's a business card for a Victorian shop I wanna open with Jenn some day."

"I can see Jenn with a Victorian shop, but not you. Why would you wanna do that?"

"One word…Ankles." I gasped. 

"And what about shoulders."

"Plenty of that. And maybe some bonnets. Or maybe we'll take off the bonnets. Who knows?"

"Oh Staci, if I wasn't so frightend of all things victorian, I might join you in this little endeavor." We then ran off laughing to get a ride from Jenn.

That day after school, I turned a corner on my way to my room and say Evan pulling Jenn by the elbow to the end of the hall and then checking to make sure no one was watching. I quickly ducked back around the corner before he noticed. Evan was dressed in a Victorian gentleman's suit, which included those funny knee socks and a pocket-handkerchief. It clashed horribly with his peroxide blonde hair. He handed Jenn an elegant Victorian fan and then put a frilly pink bonnet on her and tied it slowly under her chin.

"My dearest Emma, for dearest you will always be, whatever the events of this hours conversation, my dearest, most beloved Emma-tell me at once. Say 'no' if it is to be said." He pulled a rose from behind his back and offered it to her. "Will you go to homecoming with me?" 

Jenn squealed and nearly knocked Evan over with a ripple and then threw her arms around his neck in a very un victorian mannor before finally kissing him on the cheek. 

"I'll take that as a yes."

I heard voices behind me and Kitty, Priya, Liz, and Staci came round the corner. I filled them in on what was going on. Staci and Liz said "Awww" as Priya started laughing. Kitty grabbed me and Priya by the sleeve and then walked purposefully towards Jenn and Evan, somehow managing to get a hold of them too. She pracitcally kicked down the door to Kurt and Andy's room, who were so surprized that Kurt teleported 3 feet in the air and came crashing to the ground and Andy tripped over a chair and somehow managed to phase it halfway through the floor. Kitty let go of the rest of us and then went over and picked up Kurt and Andy's phone. She chucked it at Priya and ordered her to call Pietro. He was over about three seconds after Priya said "hello", with a smile and a "why not just talk in person".

Kitty cleared her throat and said one word as explanation for her behavior. "Shopping."


	16. loose in a glitter store

Half an hour later, we found ourselves in a candy shop at the mall. It was the one condition Priya put on the trip, that we got so high on sugar she wouldn't be able realize she was dress shopping. Kitty dragged us into a number of very boring shops that had "all our formal needs", where we picked out all that fancy smancy stuff needed for a dance. 

(I'm not even going to go into detail since I don't wanna write it and no one would want to read it anyway. I can see Priya nodding vigorously in agreement. All I'm gonna say is that Priya's looks very flamey, Kitty's looks very Preppy, Kurt's look's very blue, Mine looks very midgety, Andy's looks very Leprechaunish, and Jenn and Evan's look very Victorian and I have no idea what Pietro's could be described as.) 

Priya, no matter how much sugar was in her bloodstream, refused to let herself be talked into even looking at make up, so instead we went to the good shops.

As we stopped outside the first shop, Priya Jenn and I cackled very menacingly. 

Andy cried out in fear "No, not Bath and Body works!" He quickly attempted to cower behind Kitty, which failed twofold. Firstly, since he tried to put his hands on her shoulders, as people usually do when they are cowering, he ended up holding onto nothing, and nearly toppling over. Oh, the fear of leprechaun. Even after this, Kitty couldn't hide him, since she was about five feet tall and Andy was well over six. It was funny to watch nevertheless. Kurt looked slightly concerned as to what would be able to scare Andy so badly. "What's wrong?"

"This is the store that sold *them glitter*." He said in a barely audible whisper. Kurt jumped back about a foot and looked up at the store with a fearful awe. I grabbed his hand and pulled him into the store, leaving Priya and Jenn to drag in Andy (since Kitty obviously wouldn't be able to). The other two guys looked disturbed at the reactions of the other two, but since they had not yet seen the evil workings of the glitter, they went in anyway. (Yet being the key word in this sentence.) 

Jenn managed to ripple Andy into the store after a few minutes of fruitlessly trying to drag him. They barred the door so he couldn't leave. Suddenly, a thought struck Andy. "Hey, you can't use this stuff, it's merchandise." 

"Silly Andy, haven't you heard of testers?" And with that, the four of us girls sprung on Andy and he was nearly instantly turned into Andy the Sparkly Leprechaun Man. After a few minutes, he finally was able to push the fear out of his mind enough to focus his attention on becoming intangible. We shrugged and turned our attention to the other three guys that were huddled, horrified, in the corner, the obvious fear and disgust at such carnage etched into every feature of their face.

We pounced on Evan, and since he had no natural defense to the glitter, he had no way of escaping. After a few minutes, Jenn cried "I can't find any other visible surface to cover with glitter." So we instead turned to Kurt. 

"My poor, poor fur! And it just recovered from last time!" Kurt shrieked girlishly. "*Beth*, not the *tail*!" Evan had crawled over to where Andy was huddled under a display cabinet, and he pulled his knees up close to his chest and rocked back and forth with a tortured look in his eyes. By now all the other customers had fled in terror from the shop and the one sales clerk had went into the back to call the manager to find out what to do. Kurt took this opportunity to start teleporting around the shop, and we took chase. After a few second we got bored and turned to the last unglittered guy. "Kurt's got enough glitter, let's get Pietro!" Priya said.

Pietro zipped around the shop until Jenn started shooting ripples at him. She tripped him as he ran past the shelf full of shiny glitter bottles and ended up breaking several of them in the process. The glitter sprayed all over him, coating him even worse than Evan. That didn't prevent us from trying to put even more on him. Kitty took even more bottles, phased her hand inside and brought out the shining, shimmering liquid within, right over Andy's face. "EEEEE, MY EYES!" He started running around the shop as us girls fell over laughing at the condition of the guys. 

The sales clerk came back and told us we had a day long ban from the store. I took it she hadn't noticed all the broken glitter bottles and used the chance to hurry everyone out of the shop.

The next shop we took interest in was Starbucks. Priya got a double mocha latte grande frappicho with whip cream and sprinkles. When she sat down at the table, she poured all of the sugar packeges she could find into her cup. She took one sip and a wide demonic smile crossed her face. Even Pietro looked scared. Jenn, Andy, and I, who had known Priya a lot longer, feared for our lives. Whenever Priya got that look, people were going to dye.

After we had tried to pry the demonic drink out of her clutches, and failed, we discussed where to go next. We decided to just wander around until we found another shop to destroy, er, look at. 

We passed a large fountain that was in the process of giving a water show. After a few seconds, we noticed Priya was no longer with us. We searched around for her until Pietro noticed she was staring fixedly at the fountain, mouth open and eyes wide. 

"Priya, er, are you OK?" I asked tenatively.

"Pretty."

"Well, that explains things." Andy replied sarcastically.

"Needs something. Dunno what. Maybe…" Priya looked at her hands and a wide grin crossed her face. "Exactly."

"No Priya, there are people here." Evan reminded her. She glared at him.

"Need make pretty!"

"Ok, no more sugar for Priya." The air around Priya's outstretched hands looked distorted and glimmered in an odd sort of way. 

Jenn tried to talk some reason into Priya, but of course, when Priya is alive with sugar, nothing can get into her mind except for shiny things and more sugar. And the water reflecting off the marble fountain was very shiny.

"Priya, that's water, you can't light water on fire."

"But its shiny water. And fire goes so well with shiny." Pietro seemed to get an idea and ran off as fast as he could without looking conspicuous. 

"You can't just leave us! We might need to restrain her!"

"I'll be right back!" We managed to distract Priya with tick tacs, but obviously more sugar wasn't going to help. 

"Mein Gott, she's eaten them all, we're all doomed!" Priya was back to looking at the water in such a way that made Kurt and Andy burst into tears. This made Priya laugh evilly.

"Soon the rest of you will be as red as your hair! Well, unless I make enough flames that they become blue."

But before she could light anything on fire, Pietro appeared, holding a box. He ripped it open and flashed a piece of what was inside before Priya's eyes. It was tinfoil. Priya snatched it away and stared at it, the light it reflected playing on her face. After that, she was docile and we steered her around by her elbows. Every once in a while we had to replace the foil so that it didn't get too crumpled to reflect light, but other than that, things remained peaceful. That is,until we decided to make a stop at Zainy Brainy.


	17. OD'ing on coffee

Things went bad from the moment we walked in the door. Priya, who was still staring at her foil, tripped over a little girl who was sitting by the door. She did two summersaults before Pietro zipped around and caught her. She looked slightly dizzy and cried out, "My foil!" Her eyes flashed angrily, but then something distracted her. "Dollies!" 

She grabbed Pietro's hand and pulled him over to a corner of the store that was a play area. There was a large screen where "Barney's Great Adventure" was playing. Little plastic benches were decorated with stuffed animals and barbie dolls. Priya picked up a teddy bear and gently stroked its face with her finger. Then it caught fire. Priya giggled. "Pretty!"

She picked up a barbie and made it walk off the edge of the bench. It fell on its head and caught aflame as well. Soon there were many smoldering piles of fluff and plastic on the purple tile floor and kids were running around screaming in fear. Then Barney's theme song came on. Priya's eyes flashed with anger. "He…Must…Die." 

She pointed her hands at the screen and flames shot forth, lighting the curtains around it on fire. She threw back her head and cackled. "I hate you, you hate me, I chased Barney up a tree. With a great big flame and a burn from me to you, wont you say you'll kill him too."

"Oooh, my head." Priya fell to her knees. "Whats going on? Though I must admit I like all the fire."

"No more sugar for you. Ever." All seven of us got a hold of her and dragged her out of the store before the manager could come over and arrest us.

As soon as we made it outside, we all breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed that the sugar had worn off.

"Maybe we should go home while we're ahead. Or at least not arrested." Kitty said. Priya came bounding over with a giant pixie stick. "Look what Pietro bought me!"

We slowly turned and looked at him. He was currently pouring pixie dust into his mouth and he nearly choked on it when he noticed all the glares.

"What?" He said, trying to look innocent. "Oh, come on, how do you expect me to resist those puppy dog eyes? They're so cute!"

Priya's giggling interrupted our anger. That look was back in her eyes. 

"We have to get her somewhere where she can't cause much damage. How bout a movie?" Jenn sugessted. "And I have just the perfect one." 

"It better not be Sense and Sensibility." I told her with a look.

"No, its something much more…mutany."

Fifteen minutes later, we were sitting in our seats watching Orlando Bloom and Jonny Deep sword fighting while Priya sat on the edge of her seat. It wasn't the guys that interested her. It was the fighting and the shinning of the swords. She clapped her hands whenever there was even a hint of a skeleton and whenever there was any on screen romance, she made random people get her more candy. It usually was Pietro, because he enjoyed being rewarded with a smile and a "dhanyavad" at his return.

Jenn tried not to offend Evan by overly staring at Orlando, but she failed miserably every time his or his character's name was even mentioned. The guys complained through most of it that forcing them to watch such a movie was a serious threat to their masculinity, but I think they secretly enjoyed it. 

I cowered through most the skeletons by hiding under my coat and hyperventilating. My imagination did not help at all, since every shadow turned into Samara and even the slightest touch made me believe that one of them was behind me, waiting to kidnap me. Priya enjoyed randomly poking me and whispering "We've come for you." In my ear. Kurt tried to comfort me by putting his arm around me, but I thought it was a skeleton and fell off my seat. It took Kurt about three minutes to get me unstuck from all the candy on the floor. 

Kitty pretended to act scared to get Andy to put his arm around her, but It's just not the same when it's in you as opposed to gently resting on your shoulder.

By the time the movie was over, Priya was even more hyper that when it had started, so we tried to risk taking her home. We were nearly in a car accident six times. I'm never riding in a car when Priya has sugar again. As soon as we got home, we dumped Priya in with Staci and the rest of us collapsed in our rooms. A few minutes later we heard screams and evil laughter telling us that the sugar still had not worn off. She came running out covered in spam and green cheese. We didn't even ask where priya had gotten it from. 

Kurt and I followed Staci downstairs to the kitchen to help clean her up and we found Logan sitting at the table. His ears prickled and he said, "Something's at the door."

We watched him open it to reveal something huge furry and yellow. 

"Oh my God, the blob turned into a cat." The cat in question's huge masses of fat were still quivering from climbing up the front step.

"That's not the blob, that's my flabulous cat Sonney." I told him. Once Sonney spotted me, he walked in, rubbed his head against my ankle, and then collapsed on the ground, exhausted from the effort.

He must have walked all the way from my old house. Maybe that's why it took him so long. 

"Can he stay Logan, *please*."

"Fine." Logan sighed. "Will there never be any peace in this house?"

"Nope." Staci replied happily, still covered in Spam and green cheese that Sonney was now attempting to eat without standing up.

We finished helping Staci clean up, and then I carried Sonney upstairs to show everyone. Most of the people were either surprized a cat could get that fat, or they burst out laughing as soon as they saw him. Sonney just purred contentedly.

Kurt went back to his room, and Staci and I took Sonney in with Priya and Jenn with the hopes of getting him to exercise. After a few minutes we realized it was hopeless, and I remember that we hadn't shown Andy or Dan. Priya, Jenn, Staci and I snuck into their room to find Andy entertaining the other two with some sort of a song. Andy just grinned and continued singing.

"Hey Woman!   
Go make the kids' beds neat!   
Hey woman!   
Go make me something to eat!"

"AAH! You're corrupting my poor little Kurty with such filth."

Andy ignored me and sang louder.

"My place is at work and your's is at home.   
Now watch the kids while I go to the superdome."

"Grrrr. Callete Chispas!" I chucked whatever happened to be in my hands at the moment straight at Andy's face. It happened to be a cat.

Andy had not been expecting this kind of an attack and so he was hit head on by a flying bit of fluff. Sonney knocked him backwards and luckly he fell onto his bed. Sonney trotted annoyedly off him, remembering to step on his stomach as he jumped off. Sonney finally came to rest on my feet and collapsed onto them.

"My tummy…He crushed it."

"He has a tendency to do so." I said, wincing as he crushed my toes. "And don't you dare sing "The man song" to my innocent Klein Kurtty. Or I'll tell Kitty."

"Fine fine. I'll be good…for now."

"I'm still taking Kurt."

I have a funny feeling after we left, he and Dan went back to singing.


	18. Magic at a radom lake

That Friday after school found us all exploring a local forest preserve that was called Blackwell. It's a series of lakes that surround a large hill, called Mount Trashmore, because it used to be a large landfill. When it was getting close to Sunset, we found a small pond whose crystal waters perfectly reflected the setting sun. It had a little pier extending into the water. Liz, Dan, and Staci got disturbed and ran off with Staci singing Lion King songs when other eight of us showed no sign of leaving the water's edge. But the romantic moment was broken when we heard laughter behind us. 

"We know we'd find you with these X-geeks, Pietro." Pietro was back by Priya's side before Lance even hit the ground. Pietro had tripped him flat on his back.

"Yo, where's that hot Russian?" Toad asked eagerly.

"She's off in the woods somewhere." Andy told him. Priya elbowed him.

"Ferme a la boushe, dumbass."

"Whoops." Andy said as Toad hopped off to find Staci.

"Hey, get back here!" Lance shouted back after him. "No matter, we don't need him anyway."

Wanda addressed her brother. "Pietro, you have to stop hanging out with the Xmen! They're our enemies." 

"But they're my friends."

"We'd hope you'd come willingly. But since you're not gonna."

The ground started shaking. Evan, Jenn, and Priya fell into the lake. Kurt teleported to the nearest brotherhood member, Wanda, and then teleported away. We saw a flash on the other side of the lake, so he was presumably trying to get them away from us. The Blob was jumping around, trying to squish people, and Priya Jenn and Evan were trying to figure out how to climb out of the lake's steep sides.

Tabby started shooting off her little bombs and that combined with Lance's earthquake knocked rocks flying everywhere. I felt one collide with the side of my head and I started falling. I grabbed the empty air around me and my hand closed around Pietro's wrist for a brief second before I completely lost my balance and felt myself falling off the pier into unconsciousness.

"Beth! Priya and Jenn both tried to swim for me, but I sank too fast. They tried several times, but the water was too deep. The brotherhood seemed to have been chased away by now.

"Pietro, go get Kurt!" He made as if to run away, but only went at a normal speed.

"What the heck…"

"Hurry up! This is not the time!"

"I'm not doing it on purpose. It's like I can't use my powers!"

Realization spread on Priya and Jenn's faces. 

"She cant move! We have to figure out how to save her." Jenn was practically in hysterics. 

Kitty remembered the first time I had done this though, "She doesn't need to breath though. She should be ok." 

Priya had been thinking. "Can you and Andy phase through the water? I mean, you should be able to go faster than us swimming."

They nodded and jumped in, dropping pretty fast. I felt a hand around my wrist and then I was rising with them. Once we were back on the pier, I reached up the one arm I could move and grabbed Pietro's wrist, pulling the power back into myself. I coughed and blinked. 

"Thanks guys. I…" I noticed Kitty and Andy were staring at each other.

"What?" 

"We, ah, he, um, yeah." Kitty tried to explain.

"Well, that clears things up." Priya said sarcastically.

Andy tried this time. "I bumped into her on the way down. I know it was her. But look." He waved his hand back and forth through her arm.

"You guys were both phasing. Try that now."

They both turned intangible and Andy poked Kitty's side. She squeaked almost as well as Jenn and then looked up at him, staring.

"It…worked!" She started bouncing up and down before throwing her arms around him. Priya was giggling again. Kurt bamfed back and we had to fill him in. Then Staci was chased into view by a lovestruck toad and as soon as we chased off the amphibian, we filled her in as well. Then Liz and Dan came through the clearing looking for Staci and we had to explain it again. Dan tried to give Andy a congratulatory pat on the back, but failed since his hand went strait through. Andy was holding onto Kitty's hand.

"Now we're not going to be able to abuse you if you're always going to be intangible. And we know you're gonna wanna." Priya complained.

"Well, we can't stay intangible forever." Kitty responded, and sure enough, it started to become evident that Kitty and Andy weren't holding on to anything they could feel anymore. "I can only phase for a few minutes at the most. Otherwise I get to tired." She did look a little wobbly. 

Liz was still curious. "Is it just when one of you phases? Or both. Cause you could take turns phasing and then it could last longer."

Andy phased and tried to poke her, but it didn't work. It also seemed to take up the last of his strength and Dan had to keep him from falling into the lake. We decided that it might be time to go home.

But of course, not before Priya tried to light the lake on fire. We tried to figure out where she had gotten the pixie sticks from, and noticed Pietro trying to look innocent and whistle. "What?" We just sighed and rolled our eyes. Those two would be the death of us. (winks to Priya).

AN: Not sure what to do next, so it might just be homecoming. And this should be funny because our school does some really stupid things for homecoming. Like letting off fireworks in the gym. And yet we somehow don't have enough money for activity busses…(cough cough the geniuses cough cough) YAY, very little to die for in this chapter, except maybe by Andy (please don't use Priya's witchcraft to send Samara after me)


	19. Car washing for charity if you can call

Sunday I woke everyone up and announced that Sonney was just getting too fat, so we needed to raise money for a cat liposuction. I mean, the poor thing could hardly waddle anymore and his belly had started dragging on the ground lately.

We decided that washing cars would be an, er, interesting way to raise the money. It was still warm enough to get soaking wet outside, even though it was early October. We put up posters all over town, announcing:

"Would you like to help an underprivileged animal in need of serious medical attention?

Then come and make a donation while your car is being washed.

This was followed by a picture of Sonney looking tragic and fat, and information on the time and location. Then we pulled out buckets of soapy water and hoses and sponges into the institutes driveway. Then we were forced to wait for over five minutes before Pietro showed up with vast amounts of sugar for Priya and she wanted everyone to be hyper, so she decided to share. 

Pretty soon we were all extremely hyper and deduced it might be fun to turn on the water. In one of the buckets we accidentally put in a bath and body works glitter foamy soap solution. Then we decided that Andy needed punishment even though we weren't exactly sure why. Pretty soon the light reflecting off Andy's glittery decorations looked like searchlights in the sky so people started showing up to see what was going on.

We scared away several, but managed to make a little money from those who were brave enough to stay. Sonney trotted around when he had enough energy and showed people why they needed to contribute money. Many missed the point.

"EEE, that beach ball is growing fur! And walking…?"

"That's not a beach ball mommy, it's a gopher. A really fat gopher."

"No, I think it's a cat. If you squint your eyes like this and look into the sun, then its ears look kinda pointy, in a bloated way." 

"But cats can't possibly get *that* fat. I still think it's a beach ball, it must have just been blowing in the wind and appeared to be walking." Sonney chose that moment to sneeze. "…Or maybe not…" She said amazed. I decided to walk over and explain our cause. 

"The poor thing ate too much and now he can hardly move." This point was emphasized when Sonney collapsed and the ground trembled slightly. "We're raising money to get him immediate medical attention for his condition, therapy for his eating disorder, and also a portion of the proceeds will go to buy glitter, because it has, er, secret, unexplored medical properties."

"Er, that's very, um, disturbed. Here's five…" Priya shot her a death look. "I mean twenty dollars for your, uh, interesting cause. Now, can you just answer one of my many questions? Is that a cat or a gopher?" 

Andy pulled up with her car all nice and clean and shiny, well shiny mainly due to the fact that it had accidentally been doused with a couple of buckets of glitter meant for Andy. The woman forced her children bodily into the car and tried to drive away, but her engine only revved. It seemed that Andy had phased the front tire into the curb when he drove up. The woman couldn't figure out why her car wasn't moving and was getting very frustrated. Andy leaned surreptitiously on the car and phased it out of the curb. 

"You must have just had the car in neutral or something." The woman looked confused, since her car was in drive and she hadn't touched the gearshift. She shot us all a very scared and confused look and sped off before we could scare her further.

Five hours later, we had only made 99 dollars. We were about to close, when a very strange and eager figure pulled up on his shiny new bicycle, complete with training wheels. 

"Hiya Beth, look what my mom just bought me! She didn't trust me with a car, er I mean she thought I was too cool for a car, so I got this instead. Do you like it?"

"Uh, sure. It's very nice Dan. Would you, um," I stifled back a laugh. "Like us to wash it?"

"Of course. I came to help your noble cause. Now what was it again?" 

"We're raising money so my cat can, er, walk properly again." Jenn snorted behind me.

"Its true, he can't walk hardly at all in his current condition! He waddles, if you can call it that. He needs a liposuction."

Stalker Dan raised his eyebrow. "Er, your cat sounds lovely, but of course he's not as special as you."

Sonney came to my rescue and chose that moment to collapse on Dan's toes. 

"Owie! My foot!" He started hopping around in pain. Good Dan and Liz came over, and with Priya and Staci's help, used an extensive pulley system to lift Sonney in a wheelbarrow. 

"We'll just put him somewhere where he can't crush anyone." Good Dan said with a wink. Sonney fell through the bottom of the wheelbarrow. "Or maybe not." They instead took sticks and prodded him onto his kitty bed where he fell asleep from all the work he had done.

"Hey, look on the bright side." Liz told me. "Even if we don't make enough to give him a liposuction, he might be able to loose a few pounds from the effort of walking around." 

"Actually, I think he's gained weight today. And I haven't even seen him eating yet." Staci said, looking both scared and amazed.

"Yes, your cat does seem very special. Here's a whole dollar." Evan wheeled his bike over, so that we didn't risk Andy getting it stuck in the curb again. Dan luckily had no choice but to leave. We decided that we'd had enough for the day and sent Priya in to call the vet to see if a hundred dollars would be enough for a cat liposuction. She was the only one who knew enough to actually confuse the doctor.

"It's 3,000 dollars!" She yelled out the window a few minutes later.

"Aww, screw this, let's go to dairy queen instead." Staci said.

We managed to load Sonney into the car, but it took nearly everone's effort, and no one else could ride in the back, lest the car collapse or the back end drag too much for the car to drive. Kitty and Andy had to take that car alone. The rest of us loaded up into a few other random cars and we drove off to dairy queen.

(AN: I really do love my cat, honest. Cause he's my best cat ya! He just likes to eat, and even he will admit that he needs to, er, loose some weight. He keeps promising me that he will eventually go on a diet, but he just never gets around to it.)


	20. DQ and the resulting disasters

It's an understatement to say that the employees were frightened. As soon as we rolled Sonney out of the car and burst open the door to the shop, I decided that we needed a little music. I picked a memory of my favorite song, an anime Staci got me off a random website called "This video sucks", and projected it as loud as I knew how around the place. 

Of course, a lovely little visual of anime characters running around and making obscene gestures came with it, but luckily I could somewhat see through it. I hadn't figured out how to control them independently yet. All the occupants, including my friends jumped at the sudden unexpected noise. Then the customer looked highly, er, highly annoyed by the lyrics, whereas my friends grinned with pure evil pleasure. (Especially Priya)

"Life's gonna suck when you grow up

When you grow up, when you grow up,

Life's gonna suck when you grow up

It sucks pretty bad right now."

Staci fell over laughing at the memories, but luckily managed to land on the soft pillow that was my poor 'little' kitty. Most the customers left, but as soon as the lyrics got to:

"You might have to go to war,

Shoot a gun

Kill a nun"

The rest left pretty quickly. I grinned at the destruction of our magical song and my friends started singing along.

"You're gonna wind up smoking crack,

on your back

face the fact

you're gonna end up hooked on smack

and then you're gonna die."

"Dancing robots!" Staci shrieked as some little anime robots came into view reflected onto a nearby ice cream freezer. She tried to imitate their lovely robot dances, but ended up tripping on Andy and falling through him as he tried to phase. He still managed to wind up crashing into a chair. (Andy and his bad luck. I thought he was a Leprechaun.)

We all sang as loud as possible with the last line.

"AND THEN YOU'RE GONNA DIEEEEEEEE"

"We'll I think I smell a lawsuit in that one, what do you think?" The video ended itself.

As soon as we almost finished laughing, Priya asked me "Beth, where did you learn to sing. Last I knew, you sucked."

"Oh thanks a lot Priya. And it was a memory, silly. I still suck in real life." An evil grin crossed my face. "Would you like a demonstration?"

Priya's eyes widened in a mingle of shock and horror, then relaxed as she light up her hands, remembering she could do so.

"Aww, you're no fun. Fine, would you like me to remember another song?"

"It's gonna be a little hard if you're stuffing yourself with ice cream."

"Oh yeah, well I was getting dizzy anyway. Of course, it does add to the experience of hyperness." I replied with a wink.

"What, the dizziness, or the singing?"

"Er, both!"

Sonney then tried to climb into a nearby garbage can to get at an old container of half eaten ice cream, and though he was failing miserably, due to the fact he had no front claws and weighed about a ba-trillion million pounds, we decided it was time to order. 

Naturally, everyone ordered huge triple scoops of ice cream with all the works, or elaborate combinations of candy and ice cream, so in the end, Dairy Queen ended up gaining a hundred bucks. Lucky them. But we got to be hyper, so it all worked out in the end.

As soon as we got our ice cream, we left the poor people in peace and walked over to a nearby park to wreak havoc with the playground equipment. We never *mean* to cause destruction. Honest. It just happens. Especially when we have glitter. Sonney decided that he wanted to go down the slide and nearly ran over a poor little girl in the process of crushing the slide. Her mother looked highly affronted and ran away with the child in her arms. 

We then proceeded to have a glitter fight, which was started by Jenn "accidentally" trying to open a glitter container and ending up dumping it all over Andy…and herself. The guys soon decided to take the fight into the sandbox and it turned into a sandfight as well. We found out the hard way that sand sticks to the solution in the roll on glitter, mainly since the guys were completley covered in glittery, smelly sand. Somehow we girls managed to stay clean, except for the fact that all of us inhaled massive quantities of sand and spray on glitter, which I accidentally realized was not something good to breathe.

Then Priya remembered that fire made sand melt into glass and got a wicked grin as she started making small figurines of death and weaponry out of glass. Pietro somehow managed to convinced her to make a rose and we all saw him place it in his pocket lovingly. 

When Andy started making strange faces at her because of this, the figurines turned into death bombs and soon the air was filled with shards of flying glass. Many of which were aimed at Andy, but some of which "accidentally" headed towards the rest of us, who also had been sniggering. We felt bad about leaving such a mess where children would play, so Jenn rippled it into a pile and Priya melted it back into a large pile of glass again. 

Then Priya challenged Jenn to a contest to see who could swing higher. Once they saw that they couldn't tell who was higher, aka, they were both going parallel to the ground, Priya had the brilliant idea that they should see who could jump farther.

They flew off the swings and landed about 50 feet away. Jenn used her ripples to slow her down so she didn't hit the ground too hard. She actually almost managed to land properly, well, *nearly*. Priya wasn't so lucky. She smacked into the ground with a sickening thud, making a small crater. Pietro zipped over to help her up. She clung tightly to his arm, looking slightly dizzy and stumbling about drunkenly. A small tremor ran through her body and she blinked rapidly, shaking her head. 

"Dedia, are you OK?" I asked her anxiously. 

"I feel fine, what are you talking about?"

"Well, you did just hit the ground at about 30 miles an hour."

"Hey, I *am* the satanic queen around here."

"Maybe you have some regenerative powers."

"Or maybe I just rule the underworld."

The argument went on for a couple of minutes until Evan spoke up and asked how Jenn had managed to come out unscathed as well. 

"Didn't you see her use her ripples. She kinda pushed herself away from the ground. It almost sounds like flying…" Staci gave Jenn an evil grin. "Jenn…"

"What? Er, oh…" Jenn focused her ripples on repelling her away from the ground. A few seconds later she was hovering a few inches off the grass, shaking sligtly from lack of balance, but maintaining altitude nonetheless. 

"I'm flying Jack! Er, I mean, I'm not talking about pirates again." (Hehehe, jack sparrow, get it? Gets hit by lots of stuff from angry people)

Jenn managed to get about a total of five feet off the ground before she stopped rippling. Evan had to catch her before she hit the ground.

"Did you guys see me? I was tall!" 

"I wanna be tall too." I pouted. "And fly! It's funny!"

"Mleh, its…Whats that weird noise." There was a small growlingish noise coming from the bushes.

AN: Now I know everyone is just going to interpret this very wrongly, but really nothing wrong is going on in the bushes, well, unless, (author runs away before she gives too much away)


	21. When cats take drugs

Sonney came rolling out from under the shrubbery clutching something in his stubbily paws. He began frantically thrashing around it the dirt and then jumping up and down, batting something in the air.

He pounced it to the ground and began attacking it further. We stood gaping at the spazing kitty.

"I've never seen him move this much. Except for that one time he…" My eyes widened. "Last time he was like this, he was under the influence."

"Of how many illegal narcotics?" Priya asked.

"No, much worse than drugs. He was under the influence of (gasp) catnip." 

Sonney suddenly seemed to notice us. He had a glazed look over his eyes when he stared at us. It instilled almost as much fear as Priya's did. (Sidenote to Priya so she won't kill me: Notice I said *almost*)

Suddenly he lunged at Andy's leg. A high pitch screamed filled the air. 

"HE…BIT…ME!" Andy said, falling over clutching his ankle. 

"Aww, he didn't mean it, hes just a harmless old codger. And he doesn't have any teeth." I said, reaching down to pet him, and then pulling my hand back as he lunged for me.

"If he's old, can I eat him?" Staci asked.

"No Staci, you like old people, not old cats." Jenn explained.

"Oh yeah. We need to visit one o' them places where they keep all the old people. I'm hungry."

"You mean a retirement home?"

"Yeah, but as long as there's no retired teachers. I don't think that eating Bachtold would sit too well with me. Or anyone else, for that matter. He's scary." Seeing Priya's glare, she added, "But not as scary as Priya, of course. Nothing is as scary as Priya, queen of all that is evil. Even Samara's torments pale before her's. For Samara is jus a minion when compared to Priya. And…"

"Er, not to interrupt, but we need to get back to the overdosed cat problem." Priya glared at Jenn when she cut into Staci's speech. 

"Oh, he'll be fine eventually, as long as we don't let him have anymore catnip er…" I said trailing off as Sonney disappeared into the bushes, and the reappeared with a mouthful of long leafy stems of catnip. "Ok, maybe it's time to try and think up a plan B."

Priya just happened to have a random trench coat and we through that over Sonney. Strange ripping noises rent the air as small tears appeared in the coat. This was very surprising since he had no front claws and very little teeth. We all stared at the struggling bundle.

Priya finally spoke up. "Ok, who wants to pick it up?" Unsurprisingly, no one volunteered. After a small argument, where Priya basically threatened everyone with a very painful death, Andy was er, nice enough to try and get the cat in the car. 

"I…can't…lift…him…" he sputtered, straining again the cat's weight. Then he screamed very loudly and high pitched. The cat had bit him again. "How are we supposed to do this now?"

Finally, Priya devised a device that managed that got Sonney in the car. It was basically a large chunk of catnip on a fishing rod that Priya reeled into the back seat of Andy's car. Sonney walked after it at an alarming speed (well, for him) and then leaped into the car. We were all astonished he could leave the ground, let alone actually make it into the car. Granted, he was a little shallow and his back claws scratched up Andy's car frame, door, seats and a picture of Kitty he had sitting back there. 

"My car! My Precious car!" Andy cried. 

Priya grinned evilly. "Now I know his weakness."

Sonney purred contentedly, with a feverish look in his eyes.

"Jeez, Beth, what's wrong with your cat?"

"He's very special!"

Andy was still sobbing over his car.

Sonney shifted his weight so he could get his mouth over to the catnip Priya had forgotten to take off the fishing pole. One of Andy's tires burst, causing everyone to jump and Jenn to knock Evan over with a ripple. It took us over an hour to figure out how to jack up the car without taking Sonney out. We nearly broke the jack. Then we actually had to change the tire. Priya tried to melt the old one. By the time we finished, the sun was setting and we were late for curfew.

Logan was waiting at the front door and he did not look happy. 

"Where ya been, bub." He asked Andy, who was coming in first. All Andy could manage was "The cat…My car." Before a fresh wave of tears overtook him.

"Er, yes, go look at the backseat of Andy's car. The answers are all in there." Priya said before hurrying the rest of us upstairs before he remembered us. Pietro had already gone home.

A few minutes later screaming, growling, and the sounds of someone being mauled filtered into my open window. 

"What the…" I heard Rogue whisper. 

I made my way out by the front door and found the others there. The door burst open and Logan was standing there with Sonney clinging to his face. From what I could see of Logan, he didn't look very happy. In fact, a vein was ticking in his neck. 

Priya walked over to Sonney tenatively and poked a pressure point in his neck. He went limp and fell off Logan's face. Sonney landed on the floor with a soft "flump". Cats always land on their fat. Well, at least mine does.

I tried to drag Sonney over with my telekinesis, so I wouldn't have to get any nearer to Logan, but I only got him an inch before I gave up and just went over and picked him up. (With great difficulty, I might add.) After I had deposited him a few feet away on the couch, I turned back to Priya. 

"How *could* you pressure point my cat! He could have broken his flimsy little ankles."

"Aww, he's got too much fat to get hurt. It *was* only five feet."

"Five feet is a long way to fall when you weigh as much as Sonney!"

Logan cleared his throat and we glanced up at him, annoyed he had interrupted our conversation. "Yes?" Priya asked him, with as much patience as she could muster for an ordinary mortal like the rest of us, which wasn't very much.

Logan merely sighed and muttered something about needing vodka and then wandered off.

"Why'd he interrupt if he didn't want anything," Priya said scowling. Her face then suddenly lit up. "Unless that was an offer to get *us* some vodka too."

"Don't hold your breath." 

By this time, we were all so exhausted from lugging Sonney around all day, that we all just went to bed. Of course, it was hard to sleep when Sonney kept running up and down the hallway, and if someone was stupid enough to leave their door open, a scream would fill the air as Sonney chomped on their toes. Somehow, we managed to at least get a little sleep that night.


	22. Special tea

The next day was a holiday for some random reason nobody really understood, but hey, why questions days off school? We walked into the kitchen to find logan sitting there, looking even stranger than usual and drinking a cup of tea. He was nervous looking and twitchy and jumped when he saw us.

"What's wrong?" Kurt asked him.

"I just came down to have a cup of tea and now I'm all freaked out."

Jenn went over and sniffed the cup. "Where'd you get this?"

"I made it out of the leaves I found in Andy's car."

We all shot accusing looks at Andy. "What?! I don't have anything in my car!"

A look of realization crossed Liz's face. "Logan, did you take it off a fishing pole?"

"Yeah, I figured that he was just drying it." The twitching was now getting worse. He drained the last of the cup.

"I think you made tea out of Sonney's catnip." 

Logan spat out his strange concoction all over the table. He looked disgusted for a moment, but then a weird look came over his face. He grabbed his mug and shook the last drops of the drink into his mouth. His eyes were wide and frantic. "Need more. Where more?" He grabbed Andy's shirt collar in one hand and let out the claws of the other. "Get. Me. More. Catnip. NOW!" Andy looked highly afraid until Kitty told him to phase, then taking his hand, the two fled the scene. 

"Are you gonna just leave us alone with him?" Dan yelled after them.

"Yep!"

"Maybe if we can lure him into the danger room, he won't be able to hurt anyone else." Priya declared. "We can use the same method we did on Sonney last night. Or I can just light him on fire."

"Er, we'll go with the first one."

"Aww, but I like my way better."

Surprisingly Priya volunteered to search Andy's car.

"Why the heck is she doing something we told her to?" Logan was digging through cabnets searching for more catnip. 

"Why don't we have a jar of this stuff laying around?"

Priya returned grinning evilly, holding a single leaf.

"Whad'ya do?" I asked her accusingly.

"Er, nothing?" She said, trying to look innocent. "Oh, fine, I melted Andy's steering wheel a little. Er, or a lot." I smiled to Priya.

But Logan had stiffened, and was sniffing the air. He lunged for the hand that was holding the catnip. "I knew you stole my catnip! You want it all for yourself, don't you, bub?"

"Excuse me?" Priya asked. "Do you *want* to be lit on fire?"

"HEY! You lit my claws on fire!" Logan grabbed Priya's hand to steal the catnip, but before he could get it, something huge, flubbery, and furry collided with his face with a terrible yowling noise. Before any of us could do anything, Sonney and Logan were rolling on the floor, fighting over the last piece of catnip. Apparently, Sonney was having catnip withdrawals as well. 

"Hurry, we've got to get them into the danger room!" Jenn shouted, starting to panic.

"Yeah right, how we gonna do that?" Retorted Staci? "If we get within five feet of them, I have a funny feeling we're gonna end up with something furry and angry clamped around a leg, and its not necessarily going to be Sonney."

"I can try and levitate them." I put in.

"Yeah right, you could barely get Sonney to move last night!"

"Maybe if I lifted him instead of just dragging him across the carpet."

"Yeah, but there's Logan too!"

"Eh, I'll try anyway." I got them five feet in the air, but they were too much and they fell to the ground with a resounding thud. I fell over and Kurt had to catch me. "Whee, tripping is fun!"

As Logan and Sonney continued their squabble, we noticed that they had cracked the floor. 

"Great, what now?"

"We need bigger help."

"Like what?"

"JEAN!"

Jean came running down the stairs, eyes wide. "What, what's wrong?" Everyone pointed to the two fighting on the ground. "We need you to levitate them to the danger room." She nodded, not even asking for an explanation. She probably didn't want to know.

They lifted slowly into the air. "Man, these guy's are fat! I didn't know Logan weighed so much."

"Naw, it's all Sonney."

Kitty and Andy were outside the danger room when we arrived. "Aren't you guys done with that yet?" Andy asked, annoyed. Priya lit him on fire.

We opened the door and Jean chucked them inside, then left before we could spread our strangeness on to her. 

Logan chased Sonney around on all fours and easily caught him, but when he stood up, Sonney was once again clinging to his face. 

"Aren't you worried they're gonna hurt each other?" Liz asked.

"Naw, well, maybe if Sonney sits on Logan." 

After a few hours, they finally exhausted themselves and fell asleep curled up with Logan using Sonney as a pillow.

"I think they'll be alright now." Jenn whispered.

"You got that all on film, right?" Priya said with an evil grin.

"Of course."

When Logan finally woke up six hours later, we let him out with the promise that he would be good. "Man, this is the worst hangover I've ever had. What was that stuff again?"

"Catnip. Ya know, why would they have that kind of stuff growing in a park? Can you imagine what would happen if some little kids ate it. Or Priya?"

We all shuddered.

"Just don't eat anything else out of the backseat of Andy's car." Priya told him.

"Trust me, I don't think I'll even go *in* Andy's car anymore, bub."

"Hey! What's wrong with my car?"

"Lots of things."

Andy stomped off, muttering about needing to shine his car and people being prejudice to the luck of Leprechauns.


	23. Fatness

On Tuesday we started emergency training for RTE (a required class at our school called Responding To Emergencies where we learn CPR and stuff). 

We used really creepy plastic dummies with no arms or legs. They had no pupils and their noses and mouths could be taken off. 

"Today we're going to be practicing with choking victims. First you have to do the heimleich on your partners, and then they have to pretend to faint so you can catch them. Now, I've assigned you to what I thought was sensible pairs. Beth, you're paired with Fred." I ignored the rest. I had to work with *the blob*. I was hardly 5'3 and he looked like he could squash a car. This was going to be interesting, and extremely stupid, like everything else about school.

"Ok class, the first thing you're going to do is ask them if they want you to help. At this point, they have stopped coughing because no air can get in at all. Then you put your arms around the victim like so and thrust your fist upward." 

I raised my hand. "Uh, what If you can't fit your arms around the victim?"

"Well, uh, I don't know. Deal with that as the situation arises."

"No, I mean I really can't fit my arms around the partner."

"Er, just do your best. Now, The victim goes unconscious and falls back into your arms. Lay them down on the ground gently and don't let their head hit the ground."

"Er, teacher…" I looked up at the immense shape of the blob. "TEACHER!" SPLAT

When I woke up, the first thing I saw was Stalker Dan hovering over me. "Can I try CPR now?"

"Well, she is breathing, but sure, go ahead."

I screamed and brought my feet up to my chest and then used them to kick out at Dan. He flew back against the closet door, and since it is part of our school, the door broke, sending Dan into the closet.

"Don't EVER get that close to me again or you will be very sorry. And dead."

He picked himself out of the closet door and positioned himself about a foot away. "Hows this?" 

"Further."

"Now?"

"Further."

I continued to make Dan walk backwards until he was out in the hallway.

"Now quadruple that distance and that might be perfect."

After school was out, we all went to burger king to celebrate me not being completely squished by the blob. Except the brotherhood had somewhat of the same idea. Toad was currently hopping up and down on the counter demanding more catsup. Staci ran up and hopped on the counter too. 

"I wanna have catsup too! Catsup! That's the best food ever!"

"Yo, hey I thought you wanted Toad. And I'll be happy to share my catsup." He said with a wink.

"EWWW! That's disgusting!" Staci shrieked and pushed toad off the counter. 

Lance was currently shaking the cashier by the collar. "*What's* our bill?" 

"375 dollars?"

The ground began to tremble.

"BLOB, YOU EAT WAY TOO MUCH! Ok, here's what you're gonna do. You're gonna give the meal to us for free. Or else."

"Or else what?" The cashier said, quaking.

"Or else you'll be forced to see our powers."

"What are your powers?" The poor employee was now bright red and visibly trembling.

"Well, I'll rock things." Lance said and the ground started shaking.

"I hop around and spit slime and stuff, yo." Toad said, demonstrating and hitting an old lady.

"Don't forget your smell!" Staci yelled, jumping around on the counter.

"I run around really fast and make tornadoes and stuff." Pietro put in.

Wanda was sulking in a corner as usual and refused to comment.

"What's his power?" The casheir asked, pointing a trembling finger at the blob.

"Uh…"

"OOOH!" Staci interrupted. "His power is fatness!" She jumped up and down even more frantically and then slipped on a package of catsup, squirting it everywhere. 

"My precious catsup!" Staci yelled from the ground. She stole all of Toad's packets and began eating them. Toad cried because of all of the injustices. The brotherhood ended up getting a free meal, as long as they promised to eat it outside. 

As we were enjoying our "freedom" fries, Toad stuck his head in and shouted, "Can I have more catsup?"

Priya shot a fireball at him and everyone cheered. "Man, this means I just used my powers for good!" Priya shouted sulkily.

"But you got to beat someone up, so its all ok." Jenn pointed out.

"Yeah I guess so. But it would make me feel if I…" Andy shrieked. Something cold and wet had been smeared on his arm. He looked at it. It was very sparkily.

"Save me." He yelped. But when Priya got that look, nothing and no one could stop the destruction.


	24. French hair gel

By the time we got home, several people were extremely shiny, not all of them Xmen. The brotherhood had still been eating outside when we had left. Priya was in the process of glittering Andy and she caught their movement out of the corner of her eye. An even eviler grin spread across her already wicked face. Jenn and I got equally wicked looks and took out our glitters as well. Andy seemed to know what we were thinking and pulled from his pocket his own bottle of glitter that he kept around for "defense" purposes. 

The three of us girls had enough spare glitter for everyone else to have a bottle as well. The brotherhood never knew what hit them. One minute they were peacefully enjoying their lunches (or in Toad's case, catsup), the next, they were covered in itchy, smelly, yet wonderfully shiny glitter. Toad gave a horribly girly shriek much akin to one of Andy's and began hopping about frantically screaming something about being too clean. 

Staci, Liz, and Kitty had cornered the blob.

"There's so much to glitter!" Staci said, drooling from the prospects of all the glitteration. The blob whimpered.

Andy and Dan were taking on Stalker Dan. "What kind of a guy carries around women's beauty products?" Andy looked about shiftily. Then he looked at the glitter bottle in his hand. A few seconds later, Stalker Dan was covered in 'Sassy starberry', whimpering. 

Andy stood over him gloating. "Who's manly now?" 

Priya rolled some glitter on his arm. He squeaked. "Definitely not you." Good Dan started laughing at him. Priya rolled some on his arm too and he squeaked nearly as high pitched. "Or you." 

"Oh dedia, stop torturing the boys. You know they can't help it."

"Fine, Perhaps I should torment you instead, pathetic mortal. But you must say Por Favor first." She said, rolling all her 'R's perfectly, and looking pointedly at me.

"Hey! That's not fair! I can roll my 'R's too! Sort of…watch!" I made a sort of blowy 'yuh' sound. Priya laughed to me. I stuck my tongue out to her. Andy rolled his tongue to me. I threw a handful of glitter lotion to him. Andy screamed to everyone. (Winks to all)

Jenn stepped in at this point before things got too violent and pointed out that if we didn't return to mass glitter-torturation, the brotherhood would recover what little wits they had and run away. 

Priya skipped away to glitter Pietro and good Dan and Andy went back to lathering Dan in sparkilyness. Jenn and I decided that Dan and Andy needed to be shiny as well, since most the rest the brotherhood were being glittered by Liz, Kitty, Staci, Evan, and Kurt. Their shrieks of displeasure filled the air. After another couple of minutes, the manager came out and yelled to us {;) that we were scaring normal people again, so we went home.

When we pulled in the driveway, the first thing we saw was Logan, standing tense and quiet, sniffing the air. Something else seemed different too, though I couldn't quite put my finger on it. 

"What's he doing?" Andy asked, perplexed. Logan gave one final sniff, then darted for a huge oak tree to his right. He scaled it like a cat. He got to a knothole halfway up. He started sniffing again, and then cautiously reached his hand inside. 

A huge squirrel leapt out at him and they both fell out of the tree. Logan threw it and it jumped back at him as he just barely dodged.

By now we had gotten out of the car and were staring with a morbid kind of fascination. "You need some help?" Dan asked causiously.

"No, I got it." Logan said, unsheathing his claws.

My horrible little motherly instinct kicked in. "Don't hurt it! Its just a poor little defenseless squirrel." The thing growled menacingly. "What did it ever do to you?"

"It stole my hair gel!"

There was a long pause in which Logan got bit by the squirrel.

That's what was different. His hair was almost normal. He would have looked a whole lot less scary because of it, if he hadn't been waving his claws around.

"Can't you just buy more?" Liz asked.

"It comes all the way from Canada!"

"Canada?" My eyes lit up. "They speak French there!"

"Yeah I know, the bottle was from Quebec. I think it even had French on it."

Andy rolled his eyes as I gave a high pitched squeal. "Oh great, now you've done it."

"FRENCH!" Some primary, language loving instinct overrode the motherliness. I scaled the tree myself and used my slight telekinesis to ward off the squirrel as I reached inside and puled out the sacred hair gel. My eyes widened as I saw "Gel des cheveux". 

"Can I have my gel back now? I need to fix my hair!"

I glared at him angrily, since he was interrupting me from my precious French. I growled at him. The look in my eye made him back away slowly. 

"It's best not to bother her when she's like this." Andy explained expertly.

"I just wanna fix my hair!" Logan said, whimpering. 

"You can borrow some of mine." Evan told him. A wide smile spread across his face. "I can fix your hair!" Logan looked even more upset. I was still busy cooing over my precious French. 

The next time I saw Logan, his hair was Pink and spiked in a mohawk like fasion. Andy gave me his French workbook to distract me enough to get the gel away. Of course, then I wouldn't give up that.

"But I need to do my homework!" My eyes brightened. 

"I'll do it!"

"What have I done now?" Subsequently, Andy ended up getting a better grade on his homework than if he had done it himself.


	25. The specialness of school

The next Monday at school would kick off homecoming week. During this time, our school would do several unusual and cheap things to excite us about it. The principle would tell us part of a story every week, ending in an assembly that acted out the last bit. There would be contests and dress up days and it would end up being quite, er, special. 

Monday was 70's day where we had to dress up in outfits from the seventy's. (cough cough hence the name 70's day. cough cough) They also played music during the passing periods that seemed to be from the old principal's personal collection. Which basically meant, the songs really sucked. We caught freshmen dancing retardedly in the hallways and did our duty as upperclassmen by shoving them in lockers. Or at least threatened to do so. (We'd *never* hurt a freshman, well, maybe Jenn's sister. Winks to Jenn).

At the beginning of the day, we had an assembly where random teachers dressed up as tigers and danced around to our school's "theme song", Eye of the Tiger. (hmm, I wonder what our mascot is). Then the principal (remember, she's really Mystique) had to announced the boys running for homecoming king. The only ones willing to run were a group of identical triplets. Kurt and I heard a group of preps in front of us talking about which one was hotter.

"Brian's hotter, his eyes are like totally more bluer."

"Nah ah, John's hotter, he's like so got the better hair."

"No way, Wayne is like so the most hot, he's the tallest."

Priya had evidently heard as well. "Excuse me, uh, but they all look the same, duh. They *are* kinda identical triplets." (Side note to Priya: I know that identical triplets aren't exactly plausible, but it more funnier this way. Winks to Priya. And for everyone else that doesn't even know what we're talking about, then its betterer this way for you to. Winks to everyone else.)

The preps glared at her. "Like, what's wrong with you. They all look like totally so unique. I mean look, one has, like a red shirt, and like the others have blue. And they're different blues. I mean navy blue and dark blue. You so must not have taste in men. Don't you like date that Pietro?"

"Looks aren't important to me. I care about mind and abilities. I could care less if who I was dating was ugly or not!" Pietro shifted uncomfortably in his seat and Priya realized that some of what she had just said *might* be taken as an insult . "Er, I mean, (cough cough) well, hmm, nice weather we're having."

I laughed to Kurt. "Oh that Priya. But she's my best friend, ya."

Next, someone named "The Rope Warrior" was introduced and started doing some very, er, strange and odd jump roping tricks that he had devoted his entire life to learning. Like jump roping with his butt. (This is an actual person that once came to our school).

After he finished running around twirling a glow in the dark rope with the lights off, a group of tumblers came running out, announcing they were from the "Jessie James school for juvenile delinquents and/or pocket protector people." They jumped over each other on little mini-trampolines and then did somersaults. (These people came to our school also, only they had a different name. Our school hires really bad entertainment. They make bad choices! Let's see if anyone gets that very obscure reference. Which they won't because I didn't do it quite properly.)

As soon as the disturbing torment was over, we were dismissed back to our classes with the promise of "an even more spectacular production next time." We escaped while we had the chance. 

During the last class of the day, the intercom crackled to life.

"You can't make me do this! It's not in the job description!"

"C'mon Ms. Baxter, its not so bad."

"This is degrading!"

"It's tradition!"

"Well, you can take tradition and shove it up my- is that light supposed to be flashing? No? Er, Hello student! I'm sure you're all eager to hear this year's exciting tale that leads up to Friday's big assembly. This year its about tigers, princesses, and defeating our archrivals, the snowbunnies!"

"That's what its about every year." I told Kurt. "Pretty much the same plot, and guaranteed to put you to sleep or in a coma from the stupidness of it all."

"One day Tom the tiger was sitting in the jungle, because that's where his home was. He was sad because his mommy tiger had taken away his music by Raffi. She said that it was the devil's work. He got together all of his tiger friends and they staged a protest to get their Thumbalina and Baby Baluga songs back. But their efforts for musical freedom were interrupted by a call for help by a little birdie. The four great princesses of the land had been captured by the evil snow bunnies and were being held prisoner in the evil land of the north. Aurora, aka sleeping beauty, Belle, aka beauty, Cinderella, aka, er, Cinderella, and Princess Toadstool were all being held captive in exchange for the very valuable homecoming fireworks. What will happen to the princesses? Find out tomorrow, when we return for the next installment of The Tiger's Trouble."

Kurt looked horribly afraid for the sanity of whoever had written that. Our old principal wrote them for fun and probably had enough archived to last until the next millennium. "Are they all gonna be like that?" I nodded gravely. But then we tried to picture Mystique in her true form reading something like that and nearly fell over laughing. Priya was sitting three rows back, looking shell shocked. Evidently princesses were her weakness. "Hey, the computers just started on fire!" Or maybe they just made her really, really angry.

The fire alarms went off and we all hurried outside where we met up with the others and pushed Andy into the swamp where geese tried to eat him. (Our school has a very disgusting and creepy swamp and no one really knows why) The school let us out early, and although five computers melted beyond recognition, which wasted about a years worth of technology funding, not enough damage was caused to prevent us from coming back the next day.

(AN: In all seriousness, that is how our school celebrates homecoming. It's quite, er, special, and really gets us in the romantic sort of mood. (falls over laughing) Or not. Maybe if our school used funding better, (growls angrily at the injustice of it all) then we could have a proper homecoming, but hey, this is a school! Let's not get our hopes up.)


	26. Fireworks and cheapness

That Friday we had another huge assembly to commemorate homecoming. As soon as the entire student body of about 2100 students was crammed into our tiny gym, the lights dimmed. Ms. Baxter came out in a spotlight with a horrible fake grin on her face and waved to us frantically. "Hello students! Today we will finish our wonderful story and have lots of excitement and mystery!" Her grin widened. "Where we left off in our wonderful story, Tom the tiger was trying to save the 4 mystical princesses and his favorite Raffi music. The princesses were trapped along with the music at the top of the evil Mafia dean's tower where his disciplinary office was. Tom the tiger was waiting at the bottom." The lights lifted enough to see a poorly constructed cardboard castle leaning against a section of bleachers and four of the head cheerleaders knelt behind it. A random student that arrived late was forced to wear a tiger costume and dance about in a demeaning manor. 

"Cinderella had a brilliant idea! She let down her long luxurious hair so Tom could climb up it." (AN: I know that's Rapunsel, but our school seriously would screw something like that up) A yellow ball of yarn fell over the top of the fake caslte and 'Tom' pretended to climb up it. He accidently knocked over the cardboard and one of the cheerleaders, who rolled down the bleachers. 

"Don't worry, that's supposed to happen. Um, cue the flying monkeys!" 

"Ms. Baxter, they're snowbunnies."

"Whatever."

A bunch of football players with plastic bunny taped to their faces ran out to help her up. Others came and grabbed the other three cheerleaders and carried them off to the side. One pushed over Tom the tiger, though it was undetermined if that was part of the story or not.

"Tom gathered up his strength and summoned the famed Dancers With Mystical Powers to use their mystical dance routine to save the princesses."

A bunch of scantily dressed girls from one of the school's many dance squads ran out and began jumping up and down.

The auditorium erupted with cheering and hooting. The squad started hopping and kicking about to scratchy music. Halfway through their routine, one of them knocked over a speaker and their music stopped. It took nearly 15 minutes to reconnect all three wires. They had to start over again. 

"The mystical dancers were not enough to vanquish the evil snow bunnies." They called out about five more sets of various dance groups and cheerleaders. (No really, our school has about that many.)

"Even the combined efforts could not help, so the only thing left to do was to have the principle ask the 'Four Questions Of Extreme Power'." Ms. Baxter waited a moment. "Oh that's me. Ok, are you ready? Are there any freshman in the house!?"

The auditorium filled with booing. The only freshman brave enough to cheer was promptly stuffed into a locker.

"Are there any sophomores in the house!?"

More booing, but there was also more clapping.

"Are there any juniors in the house!?"

We could hardly hear the booing over all the cheering.

Ms. Baxter put in earplugs before asking the final question. "Are there any Seniors in the house!"

The response was deafening. Nobody dared to boo, and all the seniors were screaming.

"Stupid seniors." Priya shouted to the rest of us.

"WHAT?" Nobody could hear anything. All the jocks dressed up as bunnies pretended to cower in their little bunny booties and fled into the locker room. Tom got a kiss from each princess for his efforts, even though he really didn't do anything.

"And thus the evil bunnies were vanquished, the delightful music restored, and the princesses were saved. Everyone in the kingdom celebrated in their own special way." 

Five of the school's math teachers came out and did disco and tap dance to Raffi songs. As soon as they were done, the back panel connecting the top of the bleacher to the upstairs gym was removed and fireworks, excuse me, an advanced display of pyrotechnics were let off.

"Hmm, lets think about this. We have 2100 people crammed into one room and they're letting off fireworks, even though our school has no sprinkler system, 8 exits, and two fire extinguishers. I feel safe." (This is actually what our wonderful, brilliant school does and during my freshman year, the upstairs gym actually lit on fire during the display. Luckily they put it out before very much started on fire.)

We were released ten minutes later, safe and sound, and with only slight mental trauma from being there.

"Let's go home and pretend this whole thing never even happened." Priya suggested.

"Yeah! And we can make some REAL fires!" Pietro shrieked excitedly.

He picked up Priya and they ran off to find lighter fluid and an unsuspecting cat. The rest of us made our way home slowly, hoping we wouldn't somehow be blamed for Priya's mischief.

(AN: This is pretty accurate as to what my school does for homecoming assmblies. I got one more chapter coming up of the actual dance and that's gonna be the end.)


	27. The magical and long needed end

The next day was the actual Homecoming dance. We got all dressed up and looked our cutest. We even forced, er, convinced Priya to put on a bit of makeup. Andy tried to put some on too, but we wouldn't let him. Then we all piled into the X-Van and went to the fanciest restaurant we knew of-Mc Donalds. We ended up having lots of fun and all the cashiers laughed at us. When we got to the dance, Andy and I had a brief fight over who got to be chivalrous and open the door for everyone else before Priya pointed out that there were two doors.

Once inside, we feasted on breath mints and Swedish fish. Then Andy, Kurt, Priya and I got into a chugging contest with the water from one of our schools fancy water coolers. Then we went into the gym where the actual dancing was taking place. The music was so loud we could hardly hear each other scream and we were nearly blinded from the horrific grinding mass that was students dancing in the center of the gym.

We were quite content doing the finger dance in our own little corner until one of the Deans came up and tapped Evan on the shoulder.

"Excuse me, young students. You folks have to dance."

"But we are." 

"No, real dancing. School Approved dancing. Like the waltz. Or grinding."

And involuntary shudder ran through the group. "It is a rule."

His comment was met by silence. Priya looked sick. Jenn whimpered. My hand started trembling.

"This is some kind of sick joke, right?" Andy asked.

"No, it's a rule. Get dancing or you fail."

"How can we fail?"

"No dancing, all F's. Forever. And you are pun in a mandatory dance class. We will hunt you down and make you come."

"Ha Ha, I don't have anyone to dance with and you all do!" Staci laughed.

"This young man doesn't either." He pushed over stalker Dan. Staci screamed and smacked him. They started bickering.

"Aww, aren't they cute!" Andy cooed. He got smacked by Staci too.

"What do we *Do*? Dancing involves (shudder) physical contact!" Jenn said.

"We've had to touch before, why is this so scary?" Andy whimpered.

"Cause it's the (shudder) dancing kind." Priya told him. Staci was still fighting with Dan.

"And they're gonna hunt us down too!" The man was coming back.

"I've got an idea!" Priya said. "Follow me!" She lead us out to the parking lot and got behind the wheel of the huge X van.

"You can't drive!" She growled menacingly. "Ok, fine." Andy gave in.

"Where are we going?" Pietro asked cautiously.

"Canada." Priya replied simply.

My eyes widened. "They speak French in Canada!" I shrieked as we left the parking lot. Priya smacked me.

"Ya know, this might invoke my Canadian instinct, eh?" Andy told her. Priya smacked him too.

"That's mean Dedia." More smacking as we drove off in a vaguely north direction. 

****

And we were never seen again (luckily). :D

THE END

(AN: Ok, im done. That was a fun story. Hope everyone enjoyed!)


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